


no grave can hold my body down

by millipop



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Powers, Basically it's canon but a little bit different??, Canon Dialogue, Canon Universe, F/M, Graceling fusion, Mindreader Bellamy, Self-Indulgent, Sort Of, Survivor Clarke, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, fuck it just read the author's note in the first chapter, laughs in you thought i was over that concept, millipop what do you mean haven't you already done a graceling au?, semi-canon, sorry for the long chapters oh god it's just how i write okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 83,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24305140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millipop/pseuds/millipop
Summary: There's no word for what she is, on the Ark. A girl with strange eyes, sure, but Clarke Griffin is a lot more than the undiscovered powers that come with such an affliction. She's a leader, a healer, a friend. The one who makes the hard choices. Until she realises that what she brings is death - everywhere she goes.Bellamy's sister has always been jealous of him, but it's to be expected when he has a golden eye and the power to perceive everything around him, including others' thoughts towards him. It's a fine line to walk when he can't trust anyone and nobody can trust him. All he knows is he has to protect his little sister - no matter what.The grounders have a word for what they are - Gracelings. But it's going to take Clarke and Bellamy a long time to get used to what exactly that means - for the Earth, for humanity, and for each other.This is a story of canon with a twist. This is a story of two people falling in love, but discovering themselves, and the trials of survival, along the way. This is the story of Bellamy and Clarke.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 44
Kudos: 104





	1. heaven and hell were words to me

**Author's Note:**

> So...this work needs a huge disclaimer. I'll try to be as brief as I can, but I'm a wordy bitch at the best of times so don't hold your breath.
> 
> Yes this is another Graceling AU (for those who don't know what that is, you don't have to have read the books - altho u totally should they're amazing) but basically some people have heterochromic eyes + powers, it'll be explained, blah blah.) This time it's not in a fantasy-adapted-to-the-100 setting, though. This is canon. Like, 80% canon. If that's not something that floats your boat, that's cool. This is a fic for me, and if just one other person enjoys reading it, I'll be thrilled.
> 
> Honestly, this a big self-indulgent excuse to A) write another Graceling AU because I love this dynamic for these characters B) write out scenes/dynamics I love in different perspectives, with slight/major differences according to my AU, with a shit ton of character introspection C) enjoy what I really truly loved about this show: the connections between the characters, especially B + C, and revel in giving them my own ending.
> 
> That's right. There are 15 chapters: two for each season, one for a prologue. But the last three (yes, three *eyes emoji*) won't be totally planned/written until season 7 plays out, because that will ultimately impact how this story goes. No matter what, in this AU, I'm getting my cathartic endgame. Whether that's through a rough but ultimately faithful Graceling AU version of what will be in the show, or a totally different and made-up by me s7 if Jason is a spiteful dick, or a version where I take the elements I like and make up the rest to let bellarke live. It remains to be seen.
> 
> Ultimately, this is /my/ version of a love letter to the show/fandom/ship. I may have somewhat fallen out of love with the show (cwstopjasonrothenberg) but I'm still invested in the characters and actors and Bellarke and that's why I still write fic. I hope the show won't totally kill my love for writing/reading Bellarke fic after s7, because I truly love being here and the fic in this tag has kept me sane for six years. But if this is my final fic for them, it's fitting that it will be the true them, but the ending they deserve, with the addition of a self-indulgent fusion twist I can't resist putting in.
> 
> Anyway, all of this is to say I understand if no one gets what I'm trying to do with this fic, but trust me in saying I'm enjoying the challenge of writing it, and supremely enjoying going back and watching old-school bellarke for the first few chapters. I hope you won't totally hate seeing it in the tag.
> 
> Finally, a huge thanks has to go out to Ro. My constant confidante, who I can vomit any opinion/drama/gossip on and she will never judge me for it. A loyal bitch who still reads my work even when bellarke fic depresses her. A good person, a supporter of bob and eliza and the ship until the end despite everything the world has thrown at it. I hope we're friends beyond this shitshow, because you're the absolute best.  
> (And also she helped me out with some decisions for this fic and also read the first two chapters over for me because she's the best.)
> 
> Okay I think that's finally it. All that just to read a short prologue ksdjfsdkfh I'm sorry. But the next chapter is already written and will be up soon.
> 
> I hope everyone is staying healthy and not becoming too depressed over the show ending (in whatever form that takes - sorrow, anger, revenge, etc). Let's hope s7 gives us Something, even if our fave boy is absent for the first bit. Huge sigh. But you know you'll get your fix from me at least.
> 
> Without further ado...

**PROLOGUE**

when my time comes around  
lay me gently in the cold dark earth.  
no grave can hold my body down,  
i'll crawl home to her. 

_work song_ \- hozier

* * *

Clarke’s eyes are both the same colour. Large and blue, just like Jake’s. 

She’s always loved that they have the same eyes, and the same colour hair, because in all other ways she looks just like Abby, and while she loves her mother, there’s something special between her and her father. A connection that no one can come between, a thread that has them always on the same wavelength.

Clarke’s eyes are big and blue and beautiful until one day, they’re not.

It causes something of a ruckus. Not quite a scandal, because it’s not like someone can _help_ this sort of thing. It happens, sometimes. But it’s still something of a rarity. Maybe one out of fifty people on the Ark have their eyes suddenly shift when they’re a child, and it seems to be even rarer for families on Alpha station. 

She’s only twelve years old, and unlike the girls in those old movies she watches with her dad, Clarke doesn’t have a mirror in her room. There aren’t enough mirrors on all the Ark to fill every room, even if she is the daughter of a doctor and an engineer.

So when she walks out of her room in the morning for breakfast, her mom drops the food she’s holding. And Abby leads her gently to the mirror they have in the bathroom, and instead of both her father’s eyes staring back, the left one has been replaced with a bright, metallic silver.

Of course, she’s taken to be tested right away. She’s young enough to appreciate the novelty of a day off school, but old enough that she knows it’s not exactly going to be a holiday. Her mother leads her to a little room, and she sits at a desk, and the officials ask her to do math equations, then build things out of scraps and even do push-ups in the corner to see what physical exertion she can take. She’s asked to recite poetry and aim a device with a laser pointer at a certain spot on the wall and even wrestle with a smaller guard they ask to step in.

But if they detect any superior talent in her, they don’t say so, and eventually she’s sent out again with a shrug. It’s not unusual for a talent to reveal itself later, and commonly, not at all. She’ll probably be tested again in a few years, they say, but otherwise she’s to live life as normal.

So she does, as much as she can do. The other kids whisper to each other when she first comes to class, staring at her eyes and shuffling away when she comes near. Only Wells is still the same as ever. But Clarke doesn’t care that she’s weird now, because she’s only ever needed Wells anyway. And plenty of her classmates already disliked her for her parents. It’s no big loss.

The only time she ever feels sad about it is when she looks in the mirror and wishes they were like her dad’s again. But he tells her he loves her eyes, loves the new silvery shine. He says it reminds him of the Ark, of their home, and that it’s a good omen, because maybe she’ll grow up to be an exceptional engineer, leagues better than him.

Clarke doesn’t think so - she’s more interested in art, or even helping her mother in the med bay. Abby clearly hopes that’s what her talent will be -- healing. Yet no matter how much she learns about medicine, she never shows any innate talent for bandaging a sprained wrist or knowing exactly what drug to use when someone shows up with a headache.

But she works hard to make up for it and waits for the day something shows up. She _hopes_ it does. People with different eyes were shunned enough for their strange skills or powers, but those without them even more so. And she wants the loss of one of her father’s eyes to be worth _something._

She’s seventeen when she has her first inkling of what it could be. Of course, she doesn’t recognise it at the time. It's a while later that it becomes clear to her, and even then it’s only in hindsight that she sees that soccer match as the start of everything.

(It only goes downhill from there.)

*

Bellamy’s eyes change six years after Octavia is born and his mother is furious.

It’s just rare enough to happen on the Ark that she’s afraid it will bring them unwanted attention. It’s the last thing they need, having council members snooping around and asking after him, wondering if he’ll reveal a useful talent to them. He’s supposed to fly under the radar until he can join the guard, which will let him protect Octavia. 

Now, his mother says, they’ll have to put even more effort into hiding.

Octavia, young and without many new things in her life, is fascinated with his now golden right eye. And when what all his classmates do is whisper behind their hands and shun him even more than before (not that he really cares), it’s nice to have someone appreciate him. O’s more curious than she’s ever been, these days. The only reason she doesn't complain so much when she has to go into the floor on inspections is because he’ll promise to tell her a story afterwards if she’s quiet as can be. 

A few weeks after his golden eye shows up, the officials come to take him to be tested. It was probably his teacher who reported it in, because it certainly wasn’t his mother.

She tells him to try and be good at _something_. If they know what his talent is, and know it’s neither a threat nor extensively useful, the less interested they’ll be and the sooner they’ll leave him alone. And even better if it elevates him to a position with just enough power to protect Octavia without being scrutinised more.

But none of the things they give him to try come naturally. He hates mathematics. He’s physically fit enough, but not to an absurd amount (and it doesn’t help that he’s been on half rations for at least six years). His aim is good but not outstanding. When he’s asked to sew, he fares better - one of the officials lifts an eyebrow when they see him pull off an invisible stitch. But then his partner whispers (loudly enough for Bellamy to hear) that his mother is a seamstress, and they’re back to being unimpressed. 

Aurora is silent on the way back to their quarters, and Bellamy knows she’s fuming. The officials had let him go with a shrug and a warning to let them know if anything became promising, along with the feeling that he’ll be watched. Officials on the Ark don’t like to let poor kids with funny eyes go unchecked.

They let themselves in, and Bellamy kneels to let Octavia out of the floor. She’s ecstatic to see him, and he’s almost surprised at how many times she exclaims his name. Octavia’s not always so loud.

‘I hate that she likes you better,’ he hears his mom say suddenly, and he whirls around, shocked. 

Aurora is organising her sewing at their small table, by all appearances totally invested in it. She’s not looking at him at all.

‘What do you mean?’ Bellamy asks her, hurt, and his mother raises her head to look at him, eyebrows lifted.

‘What was that?’

‘I said what do you mean?’

The previous frustration from after his tests has disappeared from his mother’s face, replaced by utter confusion. ‘What do I mean by what?’

Bellamy scoffs. ‘You said…’

‘Bellamy, I haven’t said anything since we got inside.’

‘Mommy’s always quiet,’ Octavia says seriously. 

‘I just thought I heard…’

‘Great, he’s hearing things, just what I need.’ And this time, his blood runs cold. Because if he’d been looking anywhere else but her, he could have sworn his mother had spoken.

But he was looking at her, and she hadn’t moved her lips.

‘What are you looking at me like that for?’

He blinks. ‘You think I’m hearing things.’

His mother frowns. ‘Did I say that out loud?’

Bellamy gulps. ‘I don’t think so.’

Aurora’s brow furrows further, the constant frustration and tiredness on her face becoming more prominent. ‘Then how did you--?’

‘Mom,’ he says, tentative. He’s unsure how well she’ll take this. ‘I think I know what my gift might be.’

Bellamy’s always been pretty smart for his age. Since their budget only allowed for their shitty half-rations and miscellaneous fabric from the market for Aurora to make clothes, he doesn’t have any books or any luxury items of his own. So whatever books he could read at school or whatever stories Aurora could tell Octavia to get her to sleep, he soaked them up and committed them to memory, and now he does better than all his classmates on Earth history tests. Even the kids from _Alpha_ station.

It’s not like he’s smart enough for it to be a particularly unusual or outlying talent, but he just loves history, loves the figures and the settings and the stories.

And the stories about the wild powers and talents those humans with colourful eyes used to have, back on Earth, have fascinated him since before his own eye turned gold.

Plenty of people like him in the Ark’s history never found their talent, because whatever cosmic power bestows it on them hasn’t noticed that humanity’s in space now, where they can’t climb trees or swim or bake or run.

But from his reading, and from the stories Aurora’s told him since before he can remember, Bellamy knows that some of those with different eyes weren’t just extra good at something. They had powers outside that of the usual. 

What’s happening to him now seems just like that.

They find out over the next few weeks that it’s not as simple as mind-reading, which is what he initially thinks.

(It’s better and worse.)

When his mother or sister have thoughts to do with him, he knows them, almost instantly. But when his mother tests it out by thinking of other things, unrelated to him, he can’t tell at all, beyond knowing when she’s lying.

And a month later, when their next apartment inspection is due, he knows with sudden certainty that the guards are coming down the hall a few minutes early, and bundles Octavia down there just in time.

They realise this strange, nebulous power is perception, or at least that’s what his mother concludes. 

‘But it’s not good,’ she says with a set grimace to her mouth. ‘No officials will want you around them if they know. You won’t become a cadet. Nobody will trust you ever again. MIndreaders are always demoted, pulled out of unnecessary power.’

He might only be eleven years old, but he understands the gravity of that. He’s supposed to fly under the radar, but only so much that no one cares, not that they care too much.

‘So what do I do? Pretend nothing’s happened?’

Luckily, his mother is clever. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I think we can use this to our advantage.’

That’s how he becomes a fighter, or at least starts to train as one. A woman in Factory Station who’s a guard owes Aurora a favour, and he begins to get lessons every week. His mother is right. His perception becomes a huge advantage, because he knows his opponent’s intentions before they move. He can perceive their movements with his eyes closed even, not that he shows that talent too often. Instead, he becomes a star student, and it all pays off when he becomes a cadet. The officials come by and mark him of: brown and gold eyes, talent: known.

Bellamy Blake, the fighter.

And if only his mother and Octavia know the true secret of what he is, then all the better. Because he can’t trust anybody else with it, and nobody will ever trust him.

That’s just how it is now.

*

Clarke knows there’s something wrong with her dad as soon as her mom tells him the report’s in. There’s a shift in his posture, his attention shifting completely off the soccer game and teasing the Jahas. There’s even a little fright in his eyes.

She knows her dad too well.

And when she overhears the reason, it’s the first clue to her a later revelation. The Ark is dying, and there’s nothing to be done.

It all goes even more wrong, because she tells Wells, and he betrays her, and she watches as her father with his bright blue eyes and crinkled smile has the life sucked from him as he’s sucked into the void of space.

(The first time her heart breaks, but certainly not the last.)

She sobs into her mother’s arms. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ she gasps. It’s her fault. She told Wells, and now her father’s dead.

There’s a brief discussion, right there in the airlock room, after that. Her mother argues for her freedom, but Thelonious knows her, has since she was a tiny kid, and sees in her eyes (one of which is all Jake Griffin), that she’d carry on his truth-telling mission if she could. And Kane, her mother’s rival on the council, insists on the charges.

So she gets put in solitary.

Thelonious tells her with a regretful tone that if she somehow figures out what she’s good at, in there, that she should let them know, but not to get her hopes up. There are few skills so rare that they save someone from the Ark’s laws.

(Humanity or bust.)

Instead, she’s left to stew in anger and grief and impatience and guilt.

Because what’s the use of her, with this stupid silver eye, if she can’t even save her dad? If she can’t escape this hell and tell the rest of the Ark what they deserve to know? If she can’t see her mom at all for the last year of her life?

Clarke draws the Earth in the dust of her cell and curses the whole concept of strange talents that come when one’s eyes separated colour. Maybe if Jake Griffin had had one of those gifts, one that let him breathe in the void of space, she wouldn’t hate that whatever she has is useless, and he had nothing at all.

*

Octavia is twelve when Bellamy realises she’s jealous of him.

A part of Bellamy knows she always has been. He’s the older, legal child, after all. He gets to go outside, have friends, have more of a life than he can ever give her. All she gets is a dusty, shrinking hole in the floor.

It becomes more than that though. Over the years, both O and his mom have become used to him and his uncanny ability to know what they’re thinking if it pertains to him. Aurora is the best at keeping her mind carefully blank and hidden, and he’s relieved when she can.

It’s not like he _wants_ to know every little thought the people around him have towards him. Especially when he can be kind of a belligerent dick, and that doesn’t tend to endear him in people’s minds.

But for Octavia, it’s harder. She’s more emotional than their mom, finds it harder to keep her mind blank. He tries teaching her, but she gets impatient easily, and then frustrated when he tries to use her own thoughts to help her.

(It’s a vicious cycle.)

At the same time, Bellamy understands that he’s his little sister’s whole world. And it’s only natural she has thoughts of wanting his abilities, his golden eye. 

She even voices it once, when she’s really tired. They're falling asleep on his bunk for once, because they’d only had an inspection the day before and it’s unlikely there’ll be another for at least a week.

‘If I was you, Bell, I would sense every person on this ship, and learn everything about them. And then I would sense every star outside and name them after the characters from Mom's stories.’

He bites his tongue from telling her she’s never even _seen_ a star, because that would be rubbing it in. Not to mention the stars are far, far, beyond his range of perception. His power only really extends to the end of their corridor, if that.

Truthfully, he wishes Octavia could have his talent too. At least then she’d know about things beyond this tiny box of a room. But she still wouldn’t know the people, he realises, because they can’t know that she exists, and by nature, his ability only allows him to sense thoughts relating to him.

It’s a dizzying concept to explain to a twelve-year-old.

Nevertheless, the little bitter seed inside his sister only grows bigger as she does. 

Don’t get him wrong. She’s still his playful, bright, curious little sister at sixteen. There’s just that little part of him that knows it’s more and more difficult for her to watch him have a life outside of her, with the cadets and his fighting and everything else that comes with his abilities.

Maybe that’s why he decides to make her the mask.

It’s easy to persuade her, once she sees it. And even easier to convince himself that all will be fine. He basically has a sixth sense that lets him sense danger, for crying out loud. It’s worth the risk.

(Until it isn’t.)

Solar flares are far, far out of his range. He didn’t sense _them_ coming. And nothing else comes through after he urges his sister to run, to go home, because words in Octavia’s voice are ringing through his head.

_I don’t know the way home, Bell!_

Nothing that came with his eyes can save her from being ripped from his grasp. He can’t do anything but watch as she’s taken into custody, and listen to her crying out silently into his mind.

He was wrong about one thing. His range isn’t just down the corridor for her.

_Bellamy. Bellamy!_

He can’t save his mother from being arrested either. He’s a useless receiver, unable to make his own transmissions to warn her. 

And then all he has is Aurora’s disappointed stare from behind the airlock glass, complementing the icy quiet of her blank, hidden mind.

The only thought she gives him, before she’s shunted into space, is familiar.

_Your sister, your responsibility._

He may be a talented fighter, but it’s not enough to save him from being demoted to janitor. He’s not that important to the Ark. Humanity comes first, and harbouring an illegal sister trumps any special skills he can offer, apparently.

‘Fight off that trash, Blake,’ sneers his old superior, when he passes him in the hall.

It’s the worst year of his life. He takes in every derisive thought that comes his way, stiffening his shoulders but resolving to be quiet. The only fate lower than this was the void outside the Ark. 

The worst is when they just ignore him, eyes skipping over his figure like he’s blended with the wall, not a single thought spared for him. He’s nothing more than a nuisance to the Alpha Station elites.

(He’s not even worth a first impression.)

When Shumway approaches him with the deal, he knows something’s up. He’d probably know it without his perception. The guy practically reeks shadiness. But he can’t tell exactly what it is the guard is hiding, because it’s not altogether to do with him. All he knows is that Shumway’s keeping something sinister, and not giving the whole truth, when he offers the gun.

But he can’t pass up the opportunity. His sister. 

(The _Earth_.)

The former is the most important, of course. He can’t let his little sister die down on a radiation-soaked planet, not when it’s his fault she’s going.

The delight in the latter is from that little selfish part of him, the one that relishes in his gift even with the misery it's brought him. Delight that there’ll be so much to sense, to _perceive_ , on the Earth. Trees and bugs, maybe even animals. An entire planet at his feet.

So he takes the gun, and closes his eyes when he has to shoot Jaha. He can aim without it. After all, what’s the use of a power that lets him see without seeing if he can’t avoid watching himself take another life?

The shock and anger in Jaha’s last thoughts echo in his head as he runs from the room.

First his mother, now the Chancellor. He’s moving up in the world.

And then he’s being smuggled into the Skybox, and he keeps his head down striding past the procession of teenagers, and he’s on the Dropship, and he’s hurtling down to his greatest fear and his greatest desire.

The Earth. That’s the dream.

(He falls to his destiny.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk why I got so pretentious with the brackets in this prologue but eh. this is my self-indulgence look away.  
> if you're at all looking forward to the first (proper) chapter, please drop a comment, they make me so happy, no matter how short. Thanks for reading, and stay safe!
> 
> cry w me on my [tumblr](http://millipop.tumblr.com) and my [twitter](http://twitter.com/biakebell)


	2. time to up and die (set sail)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pilot -> contents under pressure
> 
> Bellamy Blake arrives on Earth, and takes in all it has to offer him. Clarke faces the truth of what the ground is. The two leaders with strange eyes clash in their ideals - one day, they'll be allies. But not quite yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER:
> 
> I know I said this in the (lengthy) notes for the prologue, but I thought it was worth mentioning again here: this fic will have a hefty amount of canon dialogue, especially the chapters for season 1.  
> That isn’t to say I’m copying it all or not adding my own spin/words/actions/perspective/etc, but if some conversations sound familiar, it’s because they are. If that’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine! But please let me know in the comments if you think I’m overdoing it and I will try and hold back in future chapters. I can’t promise for the next chapter, but honestly the further I get from season 1 the less I’ll want to use original dialogue anyway (with a few exceptions). Next chapter there will be more of my own, made-up conversations, I promise.  
> With that in mind, all credit for the dialogue I’ve taken from the show goes to the writers, which I don’t even feel salty about this time because season 1 (and 2) are genuinely great seasons of TV and rewatching them has reminded me of why I fell so hard for this show and pairing in the first place.  
> But in general, the reason why I am using canon dialogue is because this fic is primarily an exploration into canon bellarke with a twist. My hope is that even if it’s weird, it will give you nostalgia for those early, oh-so-important days. And with this chapter, [SPOILERS SEASON 7 EPISODE 2] make up for the lack of Clarke and Bellamy in the episode just aired.
> 
> Okay, that’s me done. In this and all future chapters, the title of the chapter is from the song referenced at the start. I hope you like it, stay safe, and, uh, viva la bellarke?

you know what they’re saying about us now?   
he's a legend.   
i'm a legend.   
and we both go tripping   
through the door

_byegone_ \- volcano choir

* * *

“be the **pilot** of your own flight. not the passenger.”

― giovannie de sadeleer

  
  


The tin can dropship (that Bellamy and one hundred juvenile delinquents are bellowing down to Earth in) is falling apart.

He knows this not just because of the heart-crunching, limb-shaking, death rattle of every piece of loose metal and plastic around him (although that does contribute to his conclusion). 

No, he knows it because the gift that came with his odd-looking eyes is telling him that the metal sheeting covering the walls between them and infinity-plus miles of void-space is peeling off of the ship.

Bellamy’s not sure which noise he wants to drown out more -- the screech of the hundred-year-old metal shedding and disappearing into orbit around the Earth (probably crashing down to litter the seas for the first time in a century) or the droning preach of the man he killed less than an hour ago.

He stares up at Chancellor Jaha’s face and swallows down his guilt -- the man was a figurehead to all of Bellamy’s woes. He can’t feel sorry for him.

(He can feel sorry for himself, instead.)

Around him, teenagers cling to their makeshift restraints for dear life. Bellamy counts himself lucky there’d been a spare seat to slide into. He wouldn’t fancy being airborne when this ship lands, if he’s even alive when it does.

The teenagers start off terrified and quiet, but as Jaha finishes his speech, some of the bolder ones heckle him. And when the clanging doesn’t die off or get any quieter, some try to distract themselves by staring at Bellamy.

He supposes he does look out of place. A few years older, in a guard’s uniform. Two odd eyes, one a striking gold. One girl’s thoughts, a brunette across the way from him, are quite flattering indeed.

But as much as he enjoys _that_ , he can’t help but be focused on something else.

When he’d snuck on board, he’d found a spare seat on the bottom level, and unfortunately had not spotted Octavia in the same compartment before they launched. But now, if he concentrates hard, ignoring all the curious thoughts pushing themselves into his mind, ignoring the vast emptiness outside the ship, he can feel her presence on an upper floor. 

There’s nothing beyond that, though, because of course she doesn’t know he snuck on board. And knowing his sister, she’s too excited about where they’re going to think about him. The girl under the floor getting to see the Earth.

Still more rattling and thumps join the cacophony of sounds, along with a few shouts from above. Bellamy just prays his sister isn’t stupid enough to unstrap herself, like the kid next to him is about to. (Bellamy tells him not to be a fucking idiot and that he’d die, and luckily, he listens). 

Then something sparks from inside the walls, and ship ceases its subtler shaking in favour of convulsing and vibrating so much that he can barely keep track of what’s going on, even with his heightened perception. And with a _thunk_ and more crashing sounds and a distinct wind-down of the machine hum he’s heard his entire life, the dropship finally falls silent.

He unstraps himself, helping the young girl on the other side of him when she struggles with the shitty buckles, and quickly makes his way to the door where kids are already crowding around.

‘Hey, just back it up, guys,’ he says, louder and with what he hopes is an authoritative tone. They do, staring at him wide-eyed, all noting his guards uniform and strange eyes. He’s about to reach for the lever himself when a voice rings out.

‘Stop!’ 

It’s a girl, and her presence pushes through the crowd, focused entirely on him.

The first thing he registers about her is her thoughts about him. A quick assessment as she takes him in before she opens her mouth again. _Guard?_ She thinks. _Older. Freckles. Bad hair. Different eyes._

‘The air could be toxic,’ she says out loud. She also has odd eyes, which does intrigue him just a little. Silver and blue, a stark contrast to his own brown and gold. But just by looking at her, he can tell who she is. Not her name, but where she’s from. Alpha Station, with her pretty blonde hair and belief she can tell him what to do.

‘If the air’s toxic, we’re all dead anyway,’ he says, dismissive, and is about to turn around again when yet another voice cuts through the crowd. But this one’s a little more welcome.

He can’t believe he didn’t feel her coming.

‘Bellamy?’ Octavia asks. He takes her in, his little sister. Her bangs are gone, and there’s a little spark in her eye that wasn’t there last time he saw her.

‘My god,’ he has to say. ‘Look how big you are.’

_Shut up_ , she says to him in her thoughts, but she throws her arms around him anyway. _I’m glad you’re here, big brother._

But once she lets go, she takes him in and frowns at his jacket, the guard regalia still sticking out.

‘What the hell are you wearing? A guard’s uniform?’

‘I borrowed it,’ he tells her quietly. He’s not going to explain the entire situation to her now, in front of everyone watching. ‘To get on the dropship.’

_You idiot._

‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on you,’ he adds to her.

He can tell just from her body language she thinks he’s more than an idiot - probably more like an overprotective asshole. She continues to call him that even as she hugs him again. But there’s a fondness and gratitude underneath that he knows she purposely put there for him to find. She hasn’t forgotten how to, even after a year away from him.

‘Where’s your wristband?’ A voice cuts through. It's the blonde girl, interrupting and frowning at his hands. Octavia huffs in his arms.

‘Do you mind? I haven’t seen my brother in a _year_.’

He winces.

‘No one has a brother!’ Someone in the crowd predictably says, and of course then there’s someone to explain it.

‘That’s Octavia Blake! The girl they found hidden in the floor!’

Bellamy feels his sister’s mood go from annoyance to anger in a flash, and he holds her back as she lunges.

‘Octavia! Octavia, no. Let’s give them something else to remember you by.’

‘Yeah, like what?’ she growls, reminding him of all her bad moods back in their tiny apartment. But all he can do is smile.

‘Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years,’ he says, smug, and she stares at him.

_I think this is the best present you’ve ever brought me._

He grins, and they turn around to face the still-closed door. Bellamy can feel the simmering annoyance and worry from the blonde behind him, but he ignores it, and with no time to waste, pushes the lever down.

It opens with a flourish of steam and pressured air.

The first thing he notices is _green_ . The second thing is his sister’s awed expression. The third thing is how many _trees_ are just beyond them, his perception feeling them beyond his sight as long twisted poles rising from the ground. This is the _ground._

He tears himself away from all of that, though, ignoring how every sense of his has gone into overload. He forces himself instead to watch his sister step slowly down the ramp. He smiles as she hesitates at the edge, because it's not like Octavia to hesitate about something like this.

With a push of her dirty boots, she jumps onto the soil, and he watches as she stands still for a second. He wonders if someone should say something profound about them being the first humans on Earth in a century.

‘We’re back, bitches!’ Octavia screams.

Bellamy can’t help but laugh even as the kids stream from behind him into their new world. It wouldn’t be his sister if she’d said anything else. And he runs forward to hug her quickly and then beyond to take in the Earth, in all its glory and green.

His sister is free, and so, finally, is he.

*

Clarke picks her way through the damp ferns, marveling at the feel of soil under her boots, the fresh air streaming through her lungs. It really is amazing.

But something’s bothering her. Before they landed, Thelonious, on the video, had said something about _Mount_ Weather. They’re on fairly flat terrain right now, as far as her Earth Skills knowledge tells her. A ridge maybe, sloping slightly in the direction she finds herself stepping towards. But certainly not a mountain.

She turns back to watch the dropship, still surrounded by tiny fires from their impact, a cacophony of yelling and whooping from the teenagers running around in celebration.

What had her mother said? That it would be her instinct to take care of everyone?

Even now, she can’t keep it down. She glances down at the map, and then back up at the view of mountains in front of her, where the supplies for everyone will be waiting. It’s at least twenty miles away, if not more. It’s hard to tell; there weren’t a lot of distances to get used to on the Ark.

‘Why so serious, Princess?’ A voice from behind her teases, and Finn appears. He's the boy from the dropship, the idiot who’d been floating around and inspired two boys to copy him. Two boys who paid the price. ‘It’s not like we died in a fiery explosion.’

Clarke scowls at him. ‘Try telling that to the two guys who tried following you out of their seats.’

She tries to turn back to the map, ignoring his frown, but he just contemplates her for a second.

‘You know you have really pretty eyes, Princess?’

She sighs. ‘Would be great if they came with something that helped us survive down here, but so far there’s been nada on that front. So why don’t you go bother another girl?’

Finn snorts. ‘You don’t like being called Princess, do you, Princess?’

Clarke doesn’t dignify that with a relevant reply. ‘Do you see that peak over there?’ She ignores his knowing eyes.

‘Yeah.’

‘Mount Weather. There’s a radiation-soaked forest between us and our next meal. They dropped us on the wrong damn mountain.’

He startles a little at this, and Clarke hopes that she might get through to him. But his mouth twitches a little.

‘Now we’re down here, I’m sure some skill of yours will reveal itself to help us out.’ He lifts an eyebrow. ‘Better than that other guy with eyes like yours.’

Right. Bellamy. The not-a-guard brother of Octavia Blake. Finn’s right. He might be hard to convince to listen to her.

But he has to, right?

Otherwise they’ll all die down here. And Clarke’s not going to let that happen.

*

The thing is, Bellamy knows he’s acting like a dick. He knows that the smirk he puts on isn’t really his, the easy way he manipulates Murphy and Mbege to take their wristbands off not truly in his nature.

But it’s not like he’s _wrong_. The people in charge on the Ark _do_ regard him and the rest of the kids down here as disposable. It serves them right to rot up there in a metal box, never getting to taste _real_ air.

However he also knows that the reason he’s encouraging them to take off the wristbands is selfish. He did what he had to do to come down here and protect Octavia, and now he's doing what he has to do to make sure he's not floated for it. He can’t apologise for that.

He can apologise to Jaha’s kid, standing in front of him. Even if he’s not going to stop what’s about to happen. Bellamy hated dragging him out here, truly. He isn’t actually going to use his gun on another Jaha.

But Wells doesn’t know that, and his naivety is what’s going to get him killed. In the eyes of the Ark, anyway.

It had stuttered his resolve a little, back in front of the fire, just before it rained. Wells had looked at Bellamy like he saw through him. In a way, it reminds Bellamy of what _he_ does to other people, collecting their impressions of him and judging them for it. 

Except Wells’ thoughts hadn’t even been that malicious, even as Bellamy taunted him. 

_Idiot,_ Wells had thought about him. _I’m just trying to help them. Why can’t this guy see that?_

And Bellamy did, even as he started up the chant, and the rain started falling.

(Whatever the hell we want.)

It doesn’t stop the fact that if the Ark followed them down, he’d be dead next for killing the Chancellor, and there’d be no one to look out for Octavia. 

So he stares down the son of the man he killed and doesn’t put a halt to it as Murphy and the other guys drag him down to force the metal band off his wrist.

And he doesn’t think about the way Wells curses him in his thoughts, even as he walks away.

He doesn’t.

(He does.)

*

Clarke feels a little silly, staring at the glowing plants.

But maybe she is too serious, a lot of the time. And it really is hard to see the downsides of Earth when this is what it has to offer. The night is a perfect, natural dark, the temperature cool without being freezing. Insects chirp in the background, Jasper’s snores softly filling in the blank silences, and a boy keeps sneaking glances at her when he thinks she’s not looking.

‘They remind me a little of your eye,’ Finn announces, smiling at the radioactive plants, and Clarke scoffs. 

‘What is it with you and my eyes?’

‘You have to admit, they’re unusual,’ he says. ‘Not many of you have _metallic_ eyes.’

‘There aren’t that many of _us_ ,’ Clarke points out, ‘to begin with. And I don’t see you mooning after Bellamy’s eyes. One of his is gold.’

‘Well, he’s a dick,’ Finn says, smiling. ‘Not my type.’

She rolls her eyes, hoping she isn’t blushing. He’s cute, but not that cute. 

But her good mood lasts through to the next day, as they prepare the swinging vine, testing its weight in hopes they can swing across the river. Without being eaten, this time. 

Clarke’s not entirely sure how they’re going to get back over the river once they get to Mount Weather and carry supplies back, but she’s sure they can figure it out. Nothing can ruin her sense of success this morning. They’re on Earth, and they’re surviving, and things are about to get easier, once they get food and supplies.

She and Octavia and Monty watch as Jasper takes the vine from Finn, and she rolls her eyes a little. He’s obviously out to impress Octavia. But to his credit, he swings over the river relatively cleanly, and it’s easy to get caught in his euphoria. They’re kicking ass on Earth. She’s allowed to laugh.

Over on the bank, Jasper’s uncovering something in the dirt as Finn hands her the vine next.

‘Ready?’

She takes a deep breath, cheering as Jasper shouts that they’ve made it. Mount Weather, the dusty old sign says, glinting over Jasper’s head. Finally, they’ll have food and supplies and--

_Thwip._

The spear sails into Jasper’s chest, knocking him back. His head is lolling and everything changes.

‘We are not alone,’ Clarke whispers, once they’re sheltering behind the rocks, hardly daring to breathe, watching for any sign of movement in the trees.

People were _alive_ down here. All this time. And it seemed they weren't altogether happy to see them here.

(Things were about to get complicated.)

***

Bellamy grits his teeth as he cleans up Octavia’s wound. This is what he came down here for, to protect her from things like this, and yet she still rolls her eyes at him being ‘overprotective’.

‘What the hell was it?’ He asks her gruffly.

'I don’t know. The others said it looked like a giant snake.’

The others being the wonder twins, Finn fucking Spacewalker Collins, and of course, the Princess. 

He has to admit that the blonde has balls. She did seem fairly competent, in her own way. Which was why he’d let Octavia go on the stupid Mount Weather supply mission in the first place. And she’d almost had the hundred convinced about keeping their wristbands on earlier. It was only him stepping up and convincing them otherwise that kept him in control. He couldn't deny she had something about her, something that intrigued him.

‘You could have been killed,’ he grouses at Octavia.

‘She would have been if Jasper didn’t jump in to pull her out,’ says the girl he’s just been thinking of, stomping towards them with the Prince in tow. She has a determined set to her mouth, her odd silver eye glinting in the sunlight.

‘Are you guys leaving?’ Octavia says eagerly, scrambling up, and Bellamy immediately shakes his head.

‘No way. Not again.’

Octavia starts to argue but the Princess cuts in, even interrupting the spiel of _stop being a dick, Jasper’s my friend, I’m fine,_ that Octavia’s sending him in her mind.

‘He’s right. You’re just going to slow us down.’ The Princess’s eyes swivel to him. ‘I’m here for you.’

Bellamy turns his head to look at her directly, surprised. Her thoughts have changed, since their first meeting. He tries not to snort when she thinks _hot, but a mega asshole._

‘Clarke, what are you doing?’ Wells, lurking behind her. Bellamy can’t really get a read on their relationship. They obviously know each other -- they’re the Prince and Princess of the Ark, after all. But she’s both cold to him and concerned about him in equal measure, and he acts protective of her in a way that’s annoyingly familiar, yet not quite the same.

The Princess ignores Wells, staring at Bellamy, unblinking.

‘I hear you have a gun.’

Her thoughts were briefly about his body just a second ago, and hey, Bellamy knows he’s hot. He thinks it’s only fair she sees some of it. Not that he likes her or anything -- quite the opposite. But he’s kind of amused at where her thoughts go when he pulls up his shirt to show the gun tucked into his waistband.

_Wow._

On the outside though, her expression doesn’t flicker.

‘Good. Follow me.’

‘And why would I do that?’

She turns slowly from where she’s stridden past him, lifting her eyebrows as if to challenge him.

‘Because you want _them_ ,’ she flicks her head to where the delinquents are mulling around, pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversation between the two people in camp vying for their trust, ‘to follow _you_.’

He can’t say she’s wrong. Bellamy frowns down at her, and she just smirks back. Not even in a condescending way. She doesn’t think it, but her body language screams _I’ve got you beat._

‘And right now,’ she continues. ‘They’re only thinking one of us is scared.’ 

_His move_ , she thinks.

She must see the flicker of his expression, the acknowledgement from him that she’s mostly right, because she quirks an eyebrow and turns, knowing that he’ll follow. As much as he hates to admit it, she’s got him. If he doesn’t go with her to rescue the kid with the goggles, the other kids won’t see him as the authority who cares, the one freeing them from the tyranny of the Ark. And he needs that. 

God, he hates Alpha Station kids.

He grabs Murphy to follow them out after leaving his instructions to Octavia and Atom. They trail Wells and Clarke, the Prince and Princess leading the janitor turned criminal and his crony.

He knows what they look like. And what Wells thinks and says as he leads Clarke out of camp just confirms it.

_They’re dangerous criminals._

The Princess’s response, both out loud and in her head, just makes it worse. 

_I’m counting on it._

‘Since when are we in the rescuing business?’ Murphy drawls, and Bellamy rolls his eyes. Murphy was useful, but a loose cannon.

‘The Ark thinks the Prince is dead. Once they think the Princess is too, they’ll never come down.’

The girl in question turns to glance at him from up ahead, as if she has heightened perception of her own and heard his words. Fuck knows, maybe she does. He doesn’t actually know what talent is supposed to accompany that silver eye. There’s only one other kid with odd eyes in camp, and he’s an exceptional singer. Fat lot of use that is on Earth.

He doesn’t really care if she is hearing it though. She probably knows already.

‘I’m getting that wristband,’ he tells Murphy. ‘Even if I have to cut off her hand to do it.’

*

Bellamy starts being a dick again about half an hour into their trek. She should have known the quiet wouldn’t last.

‘Hey,’ he calls out, stomping through the bushes. ‘What’s the rush? You don’t survive a spear through the heart.’

Like he knows anything about medicine. He’s waving his gun like it’s a threat, but Clarke can’t bring herself to care that much. He hasn’t used it once since they landed, and as much as he’s a controlling, manipulative dick who’s using his looks as much his natural authority, he hasn’t shot anyone disobeying him.

It’s not a high bar to clear, but the hundred _is_ made up of criminals.

‘Put the gun away, Bellamy,’ Wells says, because he’s much more wary of him, and then of course, Murphy-the-lackey, the one that Wells was fighting when Clarke arrived back, pushes him.

‘Why don’t you do something about it?’

Clarke ignores them. She can’t deal with the overwhelming amounts of testosterone. Wells has never been one to get in scraps like this, but it seems the ground has brought out the worst in a lot of them. And she has a lot of reasons not to care about what Wells is doing.

Instead, she confronts Bellamy, who’s staring at her like he expects her to listen to his shit about giving up on Jasper.

‘Jasper screamed when they moved him,’ Clarke tells him, pointed. ‘If the spear struck his heart he’d have died instantly.’ His expression doesn’t change. He just waits, those infuriating eyes still full of condescension. The gold eye _is_ fairly distracting though, along with the rest of him. 

But Clarke’s not the sort to let herself get distracted.

‘It doesn’t mean we have time to waste.’

Bellamy’s smirk has just grown stronger the more she’s talked, and as she moves to walk away, he reaches out and grabs her wrist. The one with the wristband on it. Of course. That must be why he agreed to come. He forced Wells to give up his, and now it’s her turn.

‘As soon as you take this wristband off, we can go,’ Bellamy says, not dropping the arrogant slant to his mouth.

She snatches her wrist back, taking pride in the brief surprise across his face. Clarke steps forward into his space. She wants him to hear this.

‘The only way the Ark is gonna think I’m dead,’ she says slowly, deliberately, ‘is if I’m dead.’ The smirk s offlides his features, albeit slowly. ‘Got it?’

Bellamy scoffs, yet brings his grin back at the same time, stepping forward into her space like she did to him.

‘Brave Princess,’ he says, and it’s Clarke’s turn to scoff.

She doesn’t care about him crowding her again. She's ready to snap back at him, ready to tell him what she thinks of his arrogant ass. But then Finn appears and their argument is over anyway.

Clarke stalks away with Finn, who’s finally got over himself, thank god. The others can come if they want to, and she won’t let them get in her way.

Jasper’s more important than Bellamy Blake being a fucking dick. 

*

Bellamy has to admit -- he really didn’t think Goggles Kid had survived. But the groan from in the trees is unmistakable, and they follow the sound into the creepiest clearing of all time.

He gets distracted by the _weirdness_ of it. The short, curling tree in the middle, the way the kid’s been tied up to it like a sacrifice.

Who the fuck were these grounders?

The Princess, of course, is striding forward, calling Jasper’s name. Bellamy follows, because even he’s concerned at what the hell this all is.

It’s not really him that catches her, as she falls into the pit trap. It’s his perception, his hand striking out to grab her arm before he can even think about it.

The thing is, Bellamy may have trained as a fighter, but he’s not _that_ strong. His arm strains as Clarke holds onto him for dear life. The arm with the wristband closed around it. 

It’s not like he wants her to die. He just wants the Ark to think she did. And he can’t say he wants to drop her either, even as a dark, hidden corner of his brain tells him it would be so easy to let go now and save himself.

It’s Clarke’s thoughts that distract him.

_I don’t want to die. God, is he going to drop me? I didn’t think he was a killer._

He doesn’t have time to refute the thoughts or answer the desperation in her eyes, though. Finn and Wells have surrounded him, even Murphy, and they’re hauling her up. And once she’s on her feet, she gives him only a cold, quick glance.

Her thoughts move on to Jasper, blanking him out. She looks up at the kid with determination once again, and it’s like she never fell.

Bellamy’s not sure why he wants her to know he wouldn’t have dropped her. It’s not like he cares what she thinks. She’s the Princess and he’s the guy that’s getting in her way. That’s how it is.

(That’s how it always is.)

But as they rescue Jasper and bring him back to camp, Clarke doesn’t even snap at him once. She just ignores him with an icy silence. And it’s hard to ignore the rope of slippery shame around his heart, and the wish that she knew he wouldn't have let her go after all.

***

Jasper can be saved.

Clarke _knows_ so. She’s seen her mother heal people a thousand times. She knows what’s a lost cause and what can be treatable. 

She doesn’t get why everyone’s trying to make her give up.

‘She’s trying to save his life,’ Finn is saying to Octavia, who at least is one other person wanting to keep Jasper alive.

‘She can’t.’ A deep, gruff voice.

Bellamy. Of course.

‘He’s a goner. If you can’t see that you’re deluded. He’s making people crazy.’

Of course he cares more about how he’s losing control of the hundred than if Jasper survives. It boils Clarke’s blood.

‘Sorry if Jasper’s an inconvenience to you, but this isn’t the Ark.’ She thinks about all the patients her mother could have saved, if resource limits weren’t necessary to their survival. She thinks about how her father needlessly died just for his attempt to reveal the truth. ‘Down here every life matters.’

But Bellamy dismisses her. ‘Take a look at him. He’s a lost cause.’

There’s a pause as everyone looks down at Jasper, still delirious and sweating profusely from his fever. Octavia worries her lip.

‘Octavia,’ Clarke tries. Maybe if she gets through to his sister, she can get through to Bellamy. ‘I’ve spent my whole life watching my mother heal people. If I say there’s hope, there’s hope.’

‘This isn’t about hope, it’s about guts. You don’t have the guts to make the hard choices, I do.’

The way he says it is so dismissive. Clarke just grits her teeth, feeling the presence of Wells next to her. Hard choices or wrong choices?

She wasn’t letting anyone else die by giving up and following someone else’s plan.

‘He’s been like this for three days,’ Bellamy says. ‘If he’s not better by tomorrow, I’ll kill him myself.’

Clarke can only shake her head. She doesn’t doubt Bellamy believes that Jasper’s as good as gone. She just knows he’s wrong.

It continues to be a shit day. While she doesn’t mind Finn so much, having both him and Wells for company on their search for the seaweed is fraying her nerves, and it’s only worse when they get trapped in the car by the acid fog.

‘Alcohol’s toxic,’ Wells frowns when Finn offers him the century old whiskey.

‘This is Earth. Everything’s toxic. Plus, it’s a time-honoured rite of passage.’

Wells bristles. ‘We’ll pass.’

Clarke glares at him. She doesn’t particularly trust the hooch either, but long gone are the days she thinks of them as a unit. Clarke and Wells, best friends. “We”. Not fucking likely.

She grabs the bottle from Finn. ‘Far be it from me to stand in the way of tradition.’

It’s disgusting. It burns her throat on the way down, and she coughs a little. But it’s worth it to see the look on Wells’s face.

It gets easier to swallow over time, and she takes longer and longer sips. The acid fog is still raging outside. Finn starts to become reluctant to hand her the bottle, but Clarke just glares it off him. The warmth sitting in her chest is something she hasn’t felt in a long time, but it’s less of a happy feeling and more...intense. Like all her emotions are coming to the fore in a way she doesn’t usually let them.

She worries about Jasper some more, and Finn tries to assure her that Octavia’s with him.

‘While we’re on the subject,’ Clarke remembers suddenly. ‘Why _is_ it that everyone thinks me wanting Jasper not to die is a bad thing? Like I’m a downer. I can be fun.’

The thing is, she knows she’s rambling, and Wells is judging her and Finn looks that little bit amused. But she wants to _know_.

‘You think I’m fun, right?’ Finn likes her. She’s not so oblivious she doesn’t know that. She’s not sure how she feels about it yet, but she’s not wrong on this one.

‘Among other things--’ Finn starts to say, but Wells cuts in.

‘You’re fun.’

Clarke doesn’t know why he’s speaking. There’s a silence.

‘Remember that time,’ he tries, but she doesn’t let him. She can’t.

‘Remember that time you betrayed me and got my father executed?’ He looks shocked, and a little pool of satisfaction boils in Clarke’s stomach. ‘Yeah, I remember.’

Another awkward silence.

‘Where were we? Fun...’ But fuck it. She’s Clarke Griffin and she’s drunk and angry and her former best friend is sitting there acting like nothing’s changed.

‘But since you brought it up - and I didn’t, because I don’t want to talk about it - what were you thinking?’ She feels her voice crack a little, staring at those eyes she used to trust.

He can’t even look her in the eye.

‘I made a mistake, Clarke.’

‘“I made a mistake, Clarke,”’ she repeats. Her eyes are watering now. She shakes her head, ignoring that her voice is wobbling and breaking . ‘Not good enough.’ 

Clarke blames the alcohol for what she says next. Didn’t they say alcohol only revealed the truth?

‘You know,’ she says shakily, hard. ‘I bet you you couldn’t _wait_ to run to Daddy.’ The way he just stares at the wall ahead of him fuels her on. ‘Tell him everything. So that he’d finally believe you were the perfect son he always wanted.’

Just as she desires, just as she knew it would, it makes him snap.

‘What do you want me to say?!’

What does she want him to say?

‘I want an explanation,’ she cries. How is he not getting it?

But after a few moments of staring, where she thinks she might actually get something from him that’s not placid excuses, he shuts down again. 

‘I can’t give you one. I thought I could trust him.’

It pierces her heart and makes her give up on him, all at once. 

‘Well, I thought I could trust my best friend.’ She settles back into the uncomfortable, curled up position against the sideways seats of the car. Fuck, the sooner she’s out of here, the sooner she can forget he ever existed. ‘Guess we were both wrong.’

‘I’m still your friend,’ Wells says, and she can’t look at him without the comfort of the bottle in her hand, urging her anger on.

‘No, you’re not. If you were my friend you’d walk out into that fog and never come back.’

The words feel terrible as soon as she’s said them, but she can’t bring herself to take them back. Another silence.

Finn takes a deep breath. God, she’d almost forgotten he was there. ‘Alright, how about we just... take it easy?’

She stares at him. For a boy who seems to like her, he really has no clue who she is. _Take it easy?_

‘I have _no_ idea how to do that.’

The rest of their time trapped doesn’t really get any better.

*

For all Bellamy worries about the other kids left out there in the acid fog, he’s glad Charlotte’s in here with him. The others are smart enough. They’ll find shelter. But someone needs to look out for this young kid, with the big brown eyes and attitude enough to stare down boys twice as big as her.

Maybe she reminds him of Octavia, sue him. 

It’s hours in the cave, and they both start nodding off not long after darkness falls.

Then she wakes him with her screams.

He can’t help but think of the whimpering nightmares Octavia had at around four years old. Thankfully she’d never been a loud kid, but it was always torture to see her curled up and afraid, whispering that the walls were closing in on her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlotte gasps, when he wakes her.

‘Does it happen often?’ 

She just sighs. He scrambles for a way to comfort her. Her nightmares probably aren’t just the monsters under the bed. Not in this world.

‘What are you scared of?’ 

Down here, it could be any number of things. The crash. The open spaces. The animals. It could be something from on the Ark. He watches as she avoids his gaze. Probably the latter then.

‘You know what, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do about it.’

She’s skeptical in her thoughts as he tries to help her. He knows it sounds a bit crazy. Nightmares were nightmares, and weren’t easily avoided.

‘Let me see that knife I gave you,’ he finally says. She slips it out from her pocket, and he presses it into her palm. ‘Now when you feel afraid, you hold tight to that knife, and say “Screw you, I’m not afraid.”’

She closes her hand around the knife lightly, staring at him with a dubious expression.

‘Screw you. I’m not afraid.’

He gives her a look. Her voice is still shaking. She sighs, reminding that one bit more of Octavia. But she looks back at the knife.

‘Screw you,’ she says, stronger. ‘I’m not afraid.’

Bellamy smiles at her, just that little bit proud.

‘Slay your demons, kid,’ he says as he lies back down. ‘Then you’ll be able to sleep.’

And he’s not woken up by any more screams. Morning breaks its light through the cave, and they venture out together, finding Jones and the others. 

But Atom’s missing. 

Bellamy swears.

Atom’s one of his friends, but he still doesn’t know him that well, and as much as he tries to stretch his perception out beyond his usual limits, he can’t clock anything other than endless trees.

Of course it has to be Charlotte who finds him, her familiar screams echoing through the woods. He rushes over, dodging trees and leaping logs, and when he finds them it’s even worse than he could have imagined.

Red sores covering every inch of him, pus leaking out and Atom laying there, barely breathing, eyes glazed over with pain.

As he gets closer, there’s only one thing coming from the boy, one thought aimed at Bellamy that echoes around his head as Atom convulses on the ground.

_Kill me. Kill me._

He sends the others back to camp, Charlotte too, even after she solemnly gives him her knife. God, he hopes this hasn’t set off a new round of nightmares for her.

Bellamy bends over Atom once they’re all gone. There’s no one here now, to see his hands shake. To know he’s not actually the badass he pretends to be. That he’s not the one able to make the hard decision, to kill someone who’s past hope.

He had to close his eyes to kill Chancellor Jaha. And that was a man he hated.

All the while, Atom’s thoughts are focused on him. The only person who can end his misery. 

_Kill me. Kill me._

The knife feels cold in his hand. But he has to do it. He has to. 

He has to.

Just as he thinks he’s about to be sick, a presence approaches from behind, from out of the trees. Not Charlotte.

The Princess. Clarke.

He turns his head, and she rushes over, a serious expression on her face as she sees what’s before him. She dumps her pack like she doesn’t care about it at all. All her focus is on the boy lying between them.

‘I heard screams.’

‘Charlotte found him,’ Bellamy finds his voice to say. ‘I sent her back to camp.’

Clarke nods a little, only meeting his eye for a second before her eyes run up and down Atom’s arms, his face and neck. It’s methodical, yet caring.

For a second he thinks she’s about to announce that they’re carrying him back to camp, that she can save him like she wants to save Jasper. That nothing is beyond her powers as a daughter of the Ark’s head doctor.

But she doesn’t. She raises her eyes to his, slowly and sadly. And shakes her head.

And then.

_Not a killer._

It hits him heavy. After what he’d said to her, only this morning, about not having the guts to face the truth. He’d thought she was weak.

The Clarke in front of him is anything but.

She takes a deep breath and looks down at Atom, a grim yet oddly comforting smile on her face.

‘Okay,’ she whispers. ‘I’m gonna help you, alright?’ She meets the eyes of the boy that’s about to die, not shying away.

Before he can blink, she’s leaning forward, brushing Atom’s hair back from his face, and starting to hum a lullaby he’s never heard before, but feels nostalgic and familiar and sad and comforting all at once. Bellamy can only stare at her, offering the knife that he’s been holding over Atom this entire time, unable to do anything with it himself.

She takes it without looking, not pausing in her song, and as she’s comforting the choking and pleading boy, she slides the knife into his neck, a soft expression gracing her face. Like she’s giving him a last goodbye.

As Atom dies, Clarke keeps humming, repeating the melody. Still running her hand over Atom’s hair with a gentle touch. Bellamy watches her, this girl with odd eyes like him. A Princess that takes care of her people, and knows when she has to make the hard choice. Undoubtedly.

When they get back to camp, he tells one of the kids to get her whatever she needs. He believes her, now. If she thinks she can save Jasper, he’ll help her do that.

Clarke Griffin. A girl he’s severely underestimated.

Until now.

*

Clarke watches as the light dies behind Atom’s eyes. Another person dead on the ground. This one at her hand, although there was no other choice. In another place, another time, it might have been preventable. 

There’s still one of those, back at camp.

Bellamy watches her with wide eyes, shaking hands. As soon as she’d seen him bent over the body, hesitating, she knew what she had to do. 

It turned out that the boy with swagger and bravado wasn’t all that he pretended. 

Not a killer.

Atom lies dead a few minutes later, and Clarke breathes deeply as she scrubs the blood off her hands, trying to hold tears back. She didn’t know him very well. But he’s another one of the hundred gone. Just like that.

They haul him back to camp, and it’s a quiet, solemn march. Even Finn doesn’t have much to say, even though he’d had a lot to say before. 

About Wells. About her dad.

Her mom.

She focuses on reviving Jasper first of all, breathing a sigh of relief when he’s back in his usual humour only seconds after waking up. It’s a good sign, and now she has proof to Bellamy that she knows what she’s talking about.

There’s one aspect of her life where that’s the opposite though. 

Outside, Clarke stares up at the sky, at the blinking light of the Ark. It seems impossible she was born up there, but it’s true. Her mother is there right now.

The more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Wells had never betrayed her before. Not once, in how many childhood misadventures and lowkey wrongdoing (usually hers).

And her mom was on the council, and hadn’t that been the argument she overheard? Her dad refusing to promise he would keep quiet, despite her mother’s protests that there’d be anarchy and riots.

She swallows, not able to bear it any longer. Wells knows the truth. And if she’s right…

He’s digging Atom’s grave, of course. Because he’s selfless and good and is always the one to step up and take the hard job that no one else wants.

She approaches quietly. Clarke’s not even sure he’ll want to talk to her. She was awful to him in the car. Sure, she was fueled by alcohol and rage and grief, but. There were some things she’d said she wishes she could take back.

‘Wells,’ she says softly, and he sticks the shovel into the dirt, watching her approach with steady eyes. ‘I know I probably don’t deserve it, but I need to know the truth.’

He stares back, an uncertain, afraid look on his face. She’s known Wells her entire life. She should have looked harder at his resolve. He’s never been anything less than completely open with her before this.

‘It was my mom, wasn’t it?’ He looks away, staring at the ground. Still, even now, unwilling to break. ‘She’s the one who told your dad.’

When he meets her eyes, she knows it’s the truth.

‘I didn’t want to believe it,’ she says shakily. ‘I couldn’t. I blamed you because my father’s dead and it’s my mother’s fault.’ The last words come out hard and scared, and she breathes in, hoarse. ‘Isn’t it?’

Wells looks everywhere but her. She knows what he’s doing. Even now.

‘Wells,’ she begs. ‘Please.’ She needs the confirmation.

There’s a pause, and he watches her for a moment with sad eyes, before he breaks.

‘I knew how you would feel,’ he says. ‘I wanted to--’

‘To protect me,’ Clarke finishes, voice cracking, nodding quickly.

Her brave, selfless best friend. He hadn’t corrected her, hadn’t shouted the truth back at her even as she threw vile things at him. 

‘So you let me hate you?’ she asks, voice small.

He gives her a tiny, sad smile. ‘What are friends for?’

It breaks Clarke’s heart. ‘How can you forgive me?’

Wells shakes his head, pulling her into a hug, wrapping his arms around her. For the first time since they landed, she feels safe again. ‘It’s already done.’

She cries into his chest for a long time.

Clarke only goes back inside to check on Jasper, Wells waving her off, telling her he likes to spend his nights out here, in the calm and quiet watching the Earth do what it does best.

So she leaves him.

(It’s the last time she sees him alive.)

That morning, Harper goes out to collect more firewood, and screams when she finds his body.

Or so Clarke hears. She’s numb, when Finn tells her, numb when his body is revealed to her, a look of panic on his frozen, dead face. She can only muster the strength to wipe her hand over his eyes, to close them.

He died in fear, as she was tucked up content in bed. He died because he was outside, tending to the graves, outside because he’d just had Clarke crying in his arms half the night.

Wells Jaha, her best friend that she hadn’t truly spoken to in a whole year, is dead. Her best friend she had thrown spiteful, misplaced anger at in his last days, is dead. Her best friend, best of all of them. Dead.

She buries the tears down deep. 

(A little part of her dies with him.)

***

  
  


"anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"

— **murphy's law**

  
  


Bellamy feels sick, looking at the dismembered fingers, the knife he recognises.

Wells hadn’t been killed by Grounders. The evidence was right in front of them.

Clarke stares at the blade and picks it up, and makes the conclusion, albeit more generally, that he’s already made. The knife certainly wasn’t from the grounders.

‘Who else knows about this?’ He aims the question at his sister and Jasper, who still looks queasy. But he’s back on his feet, a far cry to his condition a week ago. That’s due to Clarke.

‘No one. We brought it straight here.’

Jasper is looking at Clarke, who concludes what he was afraid she would. ‘The grounders didn’t kill Wells. It was one of us.’

Bellamy tries not to let his face move. He knows the knife, has seen the boy who owns it fail to stick it in a tree a thousand times. The boy who hated Wells the most out of all of them. 

‘So there’s a murderer in this camp?’ asks Jasper fearfully, and Bellamy sighs.

‘There’s more than one murderer in this camp.’ He glances again at the knife. ‘This isn’t news. We need to keep it quiet.’

Of course, Clarke takes issue with it. 

_Fuck him. I’m not keeping it quiet._

He blocks her way as she tries to storm out. He knows what this will do, and he doesn’t think she does. Not this time.

‘Get out of my way, Bellamy.’ The fury at him simmers off her, not even coming to him in words but powerful emotion. She’d cared about Wells, he knew. But it was still a bad idea.

‘Clarke, be smart about this. Look at what we’ve achieved. The wall. The patrols. Like it or not, thinking the grounders killed Wells is good for us.’

She scoffs. ‘Good for you, you mean.’ _Self-centered, entitled jackass._ ‘What, keep people afraid and they’ll work for you? Is that it?’

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ he says, stubborn. ‘But it’s good for all of us. Fear of the grounders is building that wall.’ She keeps shaking her head, refuting his every word in her head. ‘Besides,’ he tries another tactic. ‘What are you gonna do, just walk out there and ask the killer to step forward? You don’t even know whose knife that is.’

He knows whose it is, but maybe she doesn’t, maybe he convince her--

‘Oh, really?’ Her silver eye glints, and she holds the knife up, showing its underside. ‘J.M. John Murphy. The people have a right to know.’ 

And she shoulders past him. He wipes a hand across his face, making eye contact with his sister. This wasn’t going to end well.

He follows them out.

Clarke’s already confronting Murphy, anger and upset clear in her voice. On his part, Murphy is already playing the defensive.

Bellamy crosses his arms.

‘Bellamy, you really believe this crap?’ Murphy’s lazy drawl sails across to him, and Bellamy clenches his jaw. He didn’t lie to Clarke, when he said he thought it was a bad idea. But now that Clarke’s accused him in broad daylight, he can’t refute the evidence.

_Fuck. He’s not backing me up._

‘You threatened to kill him, we all heard you. You hated Wells,’ Clarke accuses.

‘Plenty of people hated Wells. His father was the Chancellor that _locked us up._ ’

‘Yeah, but you’re the only one who got in a knife fight with him.’

‘Yeah, I didn’t kill him then, either.’

Bellamy frowns. He can’t tell whether Murphy’s lying or not, the words directed at Clarke, not him.

‘Tried to kill Jasper too,’ Octavia puts in, and Bellamy swallows. Murphy hadn’t been the only one to threaten Jasper. Just the only one to try and go through with it.

‘I don’t have to answer to this,’ Murphy is saying. ‘I don’t have to answer to anyone.’

‘Come again?’ Bellamy growls. 

Murphy looks at him again, entreating. ‘Bellamy, I’m telling you. I didn’t do this.’

_Why won’t he believe me?_

‘They found his fingers on the ground with your knife,’ Bellamy says, low. The truth is, Murphy’s thoughts don’t scream guilty to him. But he hasn’t had a _lot_ of practice with picking up on lying from people he didn’t know well. And as much as Murphy was useful, he was a snake, had a mind that was blank from Bellamy’s abilities more often than was usual. He couldn’t _tell._

Of course, that’s when the Princess starts preaching. And it doesn’t help things. If anything, it makes it worse.

The chorus of ‘float him’ gets louder as Clarke tries to stop what she’s accidentally started. But it’s too late, Bellamy knows. He holds Octavia back from trying to run into the mob.

_Get off me! Clarke’s right, this isn’t okay!_

The mob swarms Murphy, dragging him down the hill, and Bellamy reluctantly follows when he sees Clarke still trying to push through the crowd.

Murphy is hauled up as Bellamy watches.

‘You can stop this,’ Clarke entreats, grabbing onto his arm, desperation in her voice. ‘They’ll listen to you!’

‘Bellamy!’ The voice of Connor, the kid who’d started up the first chant, the one who’d held Clarke off. ‘You should do it.’

And then the new chanting starts.

Every kid in the hundred yelling his name, the sheer number of thoughts flooding his brain, every bit of his perception filled with their desire, their want for him to do this.

_‘Bellamy! Bellamy! Bellamy!’_

It drowns out everything else. 

‘I saw you in the woods with Atom,’ Clarke yells at him, desperate, and he looks down at her. ‘I know you’re not a killer!’

Not a killer.

She was wrong, though. He’d shot the Chancellor. He’d killed every delinquent whose wristband he forced off in the eyes of the Ark. He’d gotten his mother floated.

‘Bellamy, don’t _do_ this, Bellamy…’

He strides past her, the ringing of his name in his ears. He’s not doing it out of spite. If he doesn’t kick the box, even as Murphy squirms above with his own loud, protesting thoughts, they won’t follow him.

He’s giving them what they want.

Bellamy fights Clarke off with one hand as she pleads with him. 

_Bellamy. Bellamy. Bellamy,_ the crowd continues to chant, out loud and in his head.

He kicks the box.

‘ _No!’_ Clarke screams hoarsely, pushing at him.

‘This is on you, Princess, you should have kept your mouth shut!’

_No, Bellamy, no!_

It’s chaos, and Spacewalker enters the fray trying his own method of getting to the tree, until a shrill voice cuts through everything.

Charlotte.

‘Murphy didn’t kill Wells!’

Bellamy stares at her over Clarke, and Charlotte doesn’t meet his eye.

‘I did.’

‘Oh my god,’ Clarke gasps, and at least she has the presence of mind to grab the axe from his belt and cut Murphy down, because he can’t look away from the little girl, eyes desperate and face falling. He doesn’t want to believe her.

But he knows she’s telling the truth.

He and Finn drag her into the tent, Clarke following with her eyes streaming. She won’t look at him.

_He was right_ . _Bellamy was right._

‘Why, Charlotte?’ He wants to shake her. Of all the murderers and violent offenders in the camp, and it was _her_.

‘I was just trying to slay my demons, like you told me!’

‘What the hell is she talking about?’ Clarke hisses, a shocked glare finally sent his way.

He can’t speak for a second. ‘She misunderstood me,’ he says, flabbergasted. ‘Charlotte, that is _not_ what I meant _._ ’

Murphy yells from outside the tent. Thirsting for blood. Bellamy doesn’t even know why he wants the girl so bad. It’s not like he cared about Wells or justice. He supposes it’s probably just easier to go after her than Clarke or him, in the eyes of everyone else.

‘Please don’t let them hurt me,’ Charlotte pleads, and Bellamy can’t deal with it, the little girl so like Octavia in so many ways.

‘If you guys have any bright ideas, speak up.’ Of course, the Princess and Spacewalker just avoid his eyes, looking away. ‘Now you stay quiet?!’

‘Those are your boys out there,’ Finn accuses, and Bellamy bristles.

‘This is not my fault. If she’d listened to me,’ he gestures to Clarke, who’s looking closer and closer to breaking down. ‘Those idiots out there would still be building the wall.’

‘You want to build a society, Princess?’ Murphy calls. ‘Let’s build a society!’

There’s anger and hatred swimming in from outside, Murphy reserving a healthy amount of ill-will to him. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.

Clarke closes her eyes in frustration.

‘Please, Bellamy,’ Charlotte whimpers. 

_He’ll protect me, right?_

He can’t ignore her. Bellamy kneels down at her level, hands on her shoulders. ‘Charlotte, hey. It’s going to be okay.’ He’s not sure if it’s a lie or not. ‘Just...stay with them.’

He goes out to confront Murphy. Maybe if he uses his words, he can convince the guy to calm down. And it works, for a second.

Then, just as he’s walking away, Murphy starts towards him. But he’s too quick for Bellamy’s senses.

He gets knocked out cold.

Bellamy wakes up to Octavia peering over him worriedly, her thoughts to him confirming what he fears.

_Clarke and Finn took her. Murphy and the boys are hunting._

It’s dark, but he goes after them, and it’s lucky he does. He has no idea where Clarke and Finn are, but Charlotte’s walking alone, and he catches her, trying to be quiet.

He doesn’t understand why she screams and tries to get away.

‘Let me go!’ 

‘I’m trying to help you!’

‘I’m not your sister! Just stop helping me!’

Bellamy swallows.

_It’d be better for them if I was gone._

‘I’m over here!’ she shouts again, and Bellamy’s blood runs cold. She _wants_ to be caught. 

‘Are you trying to get us both killed?’ he hisses, and she tries to fight him off again.

‘Just go, okay! I’m the one they want.’

He grabs her shoulders again, trying to get through to her. She’s only twelve years old. She fucked up, he knows, but Bellamy can’t let her give herself up to a psycho who only has it out for her because he’s really mad at _Bellamy_.

‘Charlotte, listen to me. I _won’t_ leave you.’

But she just shakes her head.

‘Please, Bellamy.’

_They’ll kill him because of me._

He has to pick her up, then, because now she has a death wish.

(In hindsight, he just wishes he knew how serious that wish was.)

*

Clarke feels sick, as soon as she sees the empty bed. Charlotte’s gone.

She hadn’t meant to be so harsh on her, but she wasn’t _wrong_. She may be just a kid, but Charlotte couldn’t pretend she didn’t know better. But it doesn’t mean she deserves whatever fate Murphy wants for her. 

They track her through the woods, only to find them all at the river, upstream where the cliffs rise far, far above the water.

She takes in Bellamy, standing protective in front of Charlotte, who for some reason is trying to fight him off. Murphy and the others stand with their torches, anger lining their faces, especially one.

‘This has gone far enough,’ Clarke pleads with Murphy. ‘Just calm down, we’ll talk about this.’

Murphy’s eyes flicker between her and Charlotte, and for one second Clarke thinks he might listen. 

Instead, he grabs her, and holds a cold knife to her throat. He threatens her when Finn tries to intervene, and then Charlotte’s voice cuts in.

‘No! Please don’t hurt her!’

‘Don’t hurt her?’ Murphy snarls in her ear. ‘Okay I’ll make you a deal. You come with me right now and I will let her go.’

Clarke tries to shake her head in Murphy’s grip, but he holds the knife tighter. ‘Don’t do it, Charlotte.’

The kid steps forward anyway, and it’s only Bellamy that stops her, and she screams.

‘No, no I have to!’

‘Murphy, this is not happening,’ Bellamy says, voice dangerous. For a second Clarke thinks he’s going to leap at them.

‘I can’t let any of you get hurt anymore,’ Charlotte says quietly, and Clarke’s eyes dart to her. ‘Not because of me. Not after what I did.’

And then she turns, and Clarke realises at the last second what’s about to happen.

‘Charlotte!’ She cries, but she’s too late, and so is Bellamy.

She hurtles out of Murphy’s arms to kneel at the edge, Bellamy yelling beside her.

Another of the hundred dead, under her watch. She can barely breathe. 

She’s so lost in watching where Charlotte’s body has disappeared into the darkness, she barely notices Bellamy’s growl, him climbing to his feet and leaping onto Murphy, pummelling him, not holding anything back.

‘Bellamy! Stop, you’ll kill him!’

Finn wrenches him off Murphy, and he thrashes. 

‘He deserves to die,’ he screams, and that’s when Clarke knows she has to stop it. All of it.

‘No,’ she says, loud and desperate. ‘We don’t decide who lives and dies.’ Not anymore. ‘Not down here.’

Bellamy’s eyes flicker between her and Murphy groaning on the ground. 

‘So help me god, if you say the _people_ have a right to decide--’

‘No!’ She interrupts. ‘I was wrong before, okay? You were right. Sometimes it’s dangerous to tell people the truth.’

Her dad’s face comes to mind, and she closes her eyes. She’ll never truly know whether he was wrong or right to want to reveal the truth to the Ark. All she knows is, this time the answer was not the one he would have gone with.

Clarke looks back up at Bellamy, his golden eye glinting in the light of the torches, his breath still coming heavy and angry. ‘But if we’re going to survive down here, we can’t just live by “Whatever the hell we want.” We need rules.’

‘And who makes those rules, huh?’ He swipes a hand over his face, then stares at her. ‘You?’

In that moment, she knows her next words are important. But she also knows they’re right.

‘For now, we make the rules, okay?’

She sees the moment he considers it, but his nature fights back. 

‘So what then? We just take him back, pretend like it never happened?’

‘No!’ She looks at Finn. Down at Murphy. Back up at Bellamy. ‘We banish him.’

There’s a pause, and then a slight nod of Bellamy’s head. He threatens Murphy some more, but he doesn’t hurt him. It’s done, then. 

They go back to camp, leaving him behind.

She and Bellamy stand in the centre of the delinquents, every eye on them. It’s strange to be making the announcement together, like they’re the leaders. In a way, they are. It’s what she’d said to him. They make the rules now.

‘Anybody got a problem with that?’ Bellamy intones after her explanation. There’s a low grumble of acknowledgement, and no one refutes them. They exchange a glance, and go their separate ways.

Clarke meets the others in the Dropship, hoping that the next moment will mean their future isn’t as dark. She lets herself be excited. She doesn’t let herself think about Charlotte’s body disappearing over the cliff, or Wells’s stiff body, or Atom’s mangled skin, or the two still bodies of the boys in their initial landing, or her dad being sucked out into space.

She buries it all down, waiting for the moment they connect to the Ark.

It never comes. The spark fries the circuits, Monty’s face drops, and Finn storms off, and all Clarke can think about is hundreds of suffocating people up in the sky.

Why does death follow her everywhere?

Maybe that’s why she follows Finn to the mini bunker, and tries to reassure him, and tries to tell him they’re not alone. 

She’s trying to convince herself. 

Clarke kisses him, and tries to forget about everything else.

*******

He’s woken up by the sound of yelling outside, the swoop of something falling from the sky.

Fuck.

Bellamy untangles himself from Roma and Bree’s arms, climbing over them to rush out of the tent. 

_Bellamy! Get out here!_

Octavia. He winces, but he doesn’t have time to get on a shirt, and she’s already teased him about the two girls flirting with him constantly. She probably already knows.

She points up at the sky, and Bellamy’s heart sinks when he sees it. A pod of some sort, probably cargo. Probably with a radio. The kids around him are excited, eager for resources, something to help them against the grounders.

He knows it’s the end of him.

It’s risky, telling everyone that they’re waiting until sunrise -- he’s not sure anyone will believe him. But he fires out of there anyway, knowing he has to get there before anyone else.

Bellamy hasn’t seen Clarke or Spacewalker since the evening, and if they’ve seen the pod and arrive before him, there’s no way they’re not contacting the Ark. 

Octavia catches up with him later, and the look on her face when he finally tells her what he did to come down here, well. It hurts.

_I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t ask for any of this. Fuck you, Bellamy._

He continues on anyway.

The pod is smouldering in a clearing, and the door is almost too hot to open, but he swings it up and is shocked when he sees the helmet-clad girl. They sent down a _person_? 

Bellamy stares at her. No thoughts from her, despite her breathing. She’s unconscious. The radio is sputtering below him. But what if she has a back-up radio? He could make sure no one knew she survived the landing. 

He swallows, clenching the knife in his hand, and rips the radio out. Someone else will find her, and they’ll know what he did.

Bellamy chucks the radio into the river, feeling it sink out of his range.

He did what he had to do, for him and his sister, and if she hates him for it, then so be it.

*

Clarke’s breath is running short as she runs through the woods. She and Finn split up to cover more ground, but she’s worried Bellamy’s already made it, and she has no idea what he’ll do to whatever resources are there.

She rushes into a clearing and there. There it is. The pod is still smoking slightly from the landing, and Clarke runs to open the door, to see what the Ark has sent down for them.

‘Oh my god.’

‘Hi,’ says the girl, blood on her face. She has a messy ponytail and odd eyes -- one a dark brown, the other a deep blue. Clarke stares. ‘I made it?’

She nods then, smiling at the look of awe on the girl’s face. Clarke helps her climb out of the pod and her spacesuit, and grins even more at the girl’s jaw dropping at the sight of Earth, her arms outstretched to spin.

‘Is this rain?’

Clarke nods, grinning. ‘Welcome home.’

And then she has to watch as it all comes tumbling down.

Finn. Fucking Finn. She should have known his interest in her eyes came from somewhere. And now she feels sick when she looks at Raven, because she didn’t _know_ this amazing girl existed, she didn’t _know_ that Finn had someone back on the Ark he was waiting for.

Or wasn’t waiting for.

Clarke files it away, determining not to think about it. She has to focus on what’s at stake, finding Bellamy and the radio before three hundred people die for nothing.

*

‘Hey!’

Bellamy steels himself. Clarke’s found him, and her thoughts are already angry as she rushes towards him.

_Fucking dick, where did he take it?_

‘Where is it?’

He forces himself to be nonchalant. 

‘Hey, Princess, you taking a walk in the woods?’

_How is he so callous?_

‘They’re getting ready to kill three hundred people up there! To save oxygen!’

Bellamy freezes. What the fuck is she talking about?’

‘And I can guarantee you it won’t be council members,’ Clarke continues, staring him down. ‘It’ll be working people. _Your_ people.’ She stabs him in the chest with her finger, and he resists the urge to push her away.

_Did he ever care about his people or just himself?_

He clenches his jaw. Before he can reply to her, Spacewalker arrives to push him in the chest, a girl with her own angry mind trailing behind him. Great. She survived.

‘Bellamy, where’s the radio?’

Bellamy pushes Finn off him. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he lies.

‘Bellamy Blake?’ The girl speaks now, eyebrow lifting, looking surprised, yet smug. ‘They’re looking everywhere for you.’

‘Shut up,’ he says, but it’s too late.

_Looking everywhere for him?_

Clarke voices her thoughts. ‘Looking for him why?’

The girl smirks. ‘He shot Chancellor Jaha.’

He’s immediately bombarded with more alarmed thoughts.

_I knew he was dangerous_ , is what Finn thinks.

_Fuck. Of course he did,_ thinks Clarke, and he’s incensed until she speaks.

‘That’s why you took the wristbands,’ she’s realising, glaring at him. ‘Needed everyone to think we’re _dead_.’

‘And all that “Whatever the hell we want”? You just care about saving your own skin,’ Finn says, and Bellamy resists the urge to punch his condescending face. Instead he tries to walk away, but the girl won’t let him.

‘Hey, shooter! Where’s my radio?’ She stares him down, reminding him of Clarke, not least because she _also_ has odd eyes. Not silver and light blue, but brown and a darker, more dangerous blue. There’s a glint in them that Bellamy doesn’t like.

‘I should have killed you when I had the chance,’ he spits, but she doesn’t seem to care.

_He wishes he could get to me._

‘Really? Well I’m right here.’

Bellamy shoves her up to the tree, knowing before he sees it she’s slipping her knife out, threatening him right back.

‘Where’s my radio?’

‘Okay, stop it,’ Clarke cuts in, glaring at them both, but him most of all.

Bellamy grits his teeth but lets the girl go, turning away from Clarke’s disappointment.

‘Jaha deserved to die, you all know that,’ he says, and he’s surprised when the girl snorts.

‘Yeah he’s not my favourite person either. But he isn’t dead.’

‘What?’ Blood rushes through his ears. If Jaha isn’t dead, that means…

‘You’re a lousy shot,’ the girl scoffs. Bellamy feels sick. He’d purposely closed his eyes, shooting the Chancellor, letting his perception guide his hand. He’d _felt_ the bullet enter Jaha’s stomach. But somehow, he was alive. And if he came down here now…

‘Bellamy,’ Clarke stalks towards him, eyes bright. ‘Don’t you see what this means?’

_Not a killer._

‘You’re not a murderer.’ He looks down at her, trying to detect some sort of lie in her words. But she believes everything she’s saying. ‘You always did what you had to do to protect your sister. _That’s_ who you are.’

It scares him that she seems to know him like this. That she looks at him and realises what his true motivations are. He supposes it’s inevitable, after she saw him with Atom, after Charlotte. But he doesn’t like it at all.

‘And you can do it again, by protecting three hundred of _your_ people. Where’s the radio?’

Now, his heart cracks again, because she hates him still, and believes in him too much, and all that will go out the window now. He stares at her, her silver and blue eyes pleading.

‘It’s too late.’

*

She watches the flares blast into the atmosphere, their purple hue casting colourful light across the trees. 

Raven’s gift was with mechanics. She seemed to know machines innately, knew every bolt and part and use. She reminds Clarke of her father, although he hadn’t had the extra talent that came with her blue eye. Raven seemed to love what it gave her, lit up when the components came together and functioned exactly how she’d envisioned

She’d rounded up everyone and put them to work to make the rockets work, and they did. 

Bellamy is next to her, and Clarke can feel his trepidation, his conflict. He wants to save those people, Clarke knows, but he’s obviously scared of what will happen to him.

‘Think they can see it from up there?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ she answers. ‘I hope so.’ She’s not sure what makes her ask the next question, whether it’s because she doesn’t have the ally she thought she had in Finn, and saying it to Bellamy makes her feel a little better, but. 

‘Can you wish on this kind of shooting star?’

Bellamy looks at her oddly, a resigned, incredulous expression.

‘Forget it,’ she mutters, but he surprises her.

‘I wouldn’t even know what to wish for,’ he says, voice not revealing anything. ‘What about you?’

He’s a steady warm presence beside her, and Clarke looks over at Finn and Raven. The latter smiles at her, a genuine warm one, and Clarke cringes internally, smiling what’s sure to be a false one back.

Instead of dwelling on it, she looks back at the stars, the rockets burning high up in the atmosphere. God, she hopes they work.

Or three hundred people will die, and Clarke’s not sure if she can take anymore heartbreak.

‘Peace,’ she says to Bellamy. ‘And that we get through this alive.’

***

He can’t find Octavia.

She’s not in the camp. Bellamy knows this even as he searches under every tarp, looks in every tent, searches the entire Dropship. She’s not registering anywhere in his perception, and he realises that she hasn’t since their argument in the woods the previous day.

Eventually, he realises he can’t do this alone. He goes to Clarke.

She’s dismissive at first, but she clocks what must be his desperate expression.

_He’ll do anything for her._

Clarke tells him she’s doing it for Octavia, not him, and it’s partially a lie, but Bellamy doesn’t care. He needs to find his sister.

Of course, that’s when they spot the meteor shower, or more accurately, the not-meteor-shower. The body shower. The funeral.

He schools his expression into hardness, but Clarke watches him with piercing eyes, and he knows she sees through him.

_He’s devastated._

Still, Bellamy brushes it off. 

‘I helped you find the radio,’ he tells Raven, when she leaps at him, eyes burning.

‘Yeah, after you jacked it from my pod and trashed it--’

‘Yeah, he knows,’ Clarke cuts in, quiet, staring at him. ‘And now he has to live with it.’

_And learn from it._

Bellamy sighs and turns away. His sister is out there, he tells himself. Nothing else matters.

He still looks up at the shower of lights, guilt churning in his stomach.

*****

It’s the awkwardest trip ever, going to the Art Supply Store with Raven. She can tell Finn hasn’t told her, not that she really expected him to, but still. 

Raven’s chatty and animated, which is bad enough, but of course she goes on about Clarke’s mom as if she’s a hero. As if she wasn’t the person who got her dad killed.

Of course, Raven doesn’t know that, and Clarke’s not going to unload shitty family drama on her after unknowingly sleeping with her boyfriend. They get to the bunker and find the remote-control car, and it’s all fine.

Then Raven finds the deer, and Clarke’s heart sinks. She’s seen the metal bird hanging around Raven’s neck. And now it seems even more obvious to her. Finn’s go-to token of affection, apparently.

And Raven’s smart. More than just in her given talent for mechanics. Clarke can almost see the cogs turning, the dismay as Clarke gives her shitty explanations, because she’s not a bad liar, but she’s terrible at pretending everything is fine.

And it all comes to a head later, after a much quieter trip home. Raven’s surly with her, and as she dreaded, confronts her.

Clarke can’t lie to her. She _did_ screw Raven’s boyfriend.

‘I didn’t even know you existed,’ Clarke tells her, eyes wet, and it’s both the wrong and right thing to say. Raven softens, but Clarke sees Raven’s heart break behind her eyes.

‘He could have waited more than ten days,’ comes the final whisper, and Clarke has no idea what to say. 

She wishes Finn had waited too.

So they both leave the conversation broken-hearted, and Clarke hates Finn Collins in that moment, because Raven’s amazing and now everything between them is shattered and tainted by his actions. By his dishonesty to her and his disloyalty to Raven.

Clarke spends the afternoon cursing his name, but then of course regrets it. Because the others come back. Three aren’t with them, although Octavia is. And Bellamy is carrying an unconscious Finn, a knife sticking out of his side.

Well, fuck.

*

Bellamy can feel the grounders around them.

They’re right on the edge of what he can perceive, filtering in and out of his senses, putting his nerves on edge.

Scrap that. Setting his nerves on fire.

He’s terrified, but he can’t show it, because Jasper needs him to stay strong, and so does Monroe, with the way they keep looking at him, asking silently, unknowingly, for him to save them.

Diggs and John are dead, Octavia’s out there, and now so is Roma.

Finn leads the way through the trees until they finally spot her, and immediately his stomach plummets. He can see her, but he feels nothing. 

‘Roma?’ Monroe whispers, and he stops them to ease himself forward, knowing what he’s about to find won’t be what he wants.

Her eyes are open, staring, and the spear in her heart is shallow. It probably killed her slowly.

It was his fault she was here. Just the other night she was in his bed with him and Bree, and now she was gone.

Bellamy closes her eyes gently.

But they have to leave. Octavia’s still out there, and this might be her fate if he can’t find her. He swallows.

And then the horn sounds, and Finn looks scarily determined, whipping out a tent and demanding they crawl into it, insisting that it’s a warning for the fog that had killed Atom.

Time ticks by. Octavia is out there. He’s _impatient._

Finally they determine the acid fog isn’t coming. They follow the grounder they spot back to his lair, and Bellamy knows as soon as they’re outside the cave that Octavia’s in there. And the grounder is lying down. Hurt.

He rushes in, unlocks his sister, hugs her to him with all his might.

_Big brother._

His sister, his responsibility. Thank god she’s alright.

But then she tries to save the grounder.

‘Why were you defending him?’ He hisses at her when they’re finally back at camp, safe. Except for Finn, who’s bleeding out in the Dropship, Clarke and Raven frantic.

_Because he saved my life, Bell._

He scoffs. ‘No. I saved your life. For all you know, he was keeping you alive to string you up as bait.’ He hasn’t forgotten the image of Jasper, tied to that tree and groaning with pain.

‘No,’ Octavia says stubbornly. ‘I don’t think so.’

She’s so naive, is all he can think. Sixteen years in a room with two people who loved her. She has no idea how terrible people can be. How terrible these grounders were.

‘You don’t think, O,’ he tries to tell her. ‘That’s the problem. They killed _three_ of our people today. And if you had let me kill him when I had the chance, Finn wouldn’t be in there dying--’

‘Stop blaming me for your mistakes!’ He doesn’t even recognise his little sister in that moment, the Octavia who begged him for rides on his back, the Octavia who hung onto his every word. ‘What happened to Finn is not my fault. I wanted to leave, so if your little superpower didn’t tell you the grounder was waking up, _that’s on you._ If Finn dies in there, _that’s on you_.’

Bellamy stares at her. She’s not lying, and he knows that she knows he’s receiving every angry thought going along with her words.

_Everything that’s gone wrong is because of you._

He shakes his head. ‘O,’ he tries, but she doesn’t let up.

_You got me locked up on the Ark. You wanted me to go to that stupid dance._

_You got Mom killed._

Those words reverberate inside his head. The image of his mother behind the airlock doors, her last thoughts to him. The distant memory of her sleeping as Bellamy tried to quiet a newborn Octavia, sweat drying on her tired face.

‘Me?’ He finds himself growling. ‘Mom was floated for having _you._ She’s dead because you’re alive.’

The words are true, but the expression on his sister’s face is worse than the facts. He can’t stop himself though. He’s too angry, the images flashing by, the anger emanating from Octavia fueling every word he flings back. 

‘That was her choice. I didn’t have a choice. My life ended the day you were born.’

A silence.

_Fuck you, Bellamy._

She tries to leave, but he doesn’t let her and she throws off his hand when he tugs her back inside. 

_You can’t keep me locked up in here forever. You’re worse than Jaha._

Well, he thinks savagely. She hasn’t seen the last of it.

***

  
  


! WARNING !

**CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE**

HANDLE WITH CARE

  
  


‘Mom? Mom, it’s me.’

Clarke wishes she didn’t have to talk to her mother at this moment. There’s still so much she’s angry about. She can barely stand to pretend everything’s fine.

But right now she has to swallow her pride and her grief and her anger.

‘Clarke?’ Abby sounds shocked and relieved even through the static, her voice breaking. Clarke can’t deal with that right now.

‘Mom, I need your help. One of our people was stabbed by a grounder.’

‘Clarke,’ comes the next reply, but not from her mother. Clarke closes her eyes. Thelonious. ‘This is the Chancellor. Are you saying there are survivors on the ground?’

‘Yes. The Earth is survivable,’ Clarke says. It’s the only good news she can give them. ‘We’re not alone.’

There’s a silence from the radio, but Clarke doesn’t have time for it. They can get over their shock later.

‘Mom, he’s dying.’

She can’t let Finn die, and her mother is her only hope.

‘Clarke, is my son with you?’

Thelonious.

She swallows. She’d hoped to have this conversation later, not in the middle of a storm, with all the delinquents watching, when Finn’s dying with a knife stuck in his ribs.

But she knows Thelonious. Has since she was small. He’ll want to know now.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she manages. ‘Wells is...Wells is dead.’

She doesn’t want to think about it right now. She doesn’t want any of it. 

But she has to get on with saving Finn.

Her mother gets ready to walk it through with her, every second ticking away. Octavia brings them Monty’s alcohol, but then Bellamy and the others drag in an unconscious body.

A grounder.

The Blakes argue, but Bellamy’s eyes are hard in a way Clarke doesn’t like. 

‘Bellamy, she’s right,’ Clarke pleads. ‘This isn’t who we are.’

He clenches his jaw, hearing her mother’s voice over the radio, staring over her shoulder at his sister.

‘It is now.’

She doesn’t have time to argue.

Her mother talks her through the procedure, every action, every check on Finn’s vitals. She knows they must be using the imaging software on the Ark. It’s a luxury she hasn’t thought about for weeks.

She thinks all hope is gone for a second, when the ship is almost overturned while she has her hand around the hilt, throwing them all across the room. Her heart stutters. But the knife’s out, and everything’s okay. 

Until it isn’t, and the storm has blocked her mother off. 

Still, without her mother, she realises it’s poison. Without her mother, she climbs up the ladder again, this time not to reproach Bellamy, but to encourage him. It makes her sick, but there’s nothing else she can do. Finn’s _dying_.

The grounder, as she’d seen before, has odd eyes. Like her. Like Bellamy. Like Raven. The trait has survived whatever went on down on Earth. He must have some sort of skill too, something he excels in above everything else, above everyone else. She hopes it’s not something violent.

His eyes are brown and a dark, forest green.

She kneels in front of him after Bellamy’s torture, gesturing frantically at the bottles. But he won’t budge. Bellamy’s hand lands on her shoulder, a brief spot of comfort, but it’s short-lived.

Finn’s just getting worse.

‘Clarke, you don’t have to be here for this,’ Bellamy says low, as he’s about to drive the nail into the grounder’s hand. 

‘I’m not leaving until I get that antidote.’

And she doesn’t. But it’s not because of her or Bellamy, it’s because of Octavia. And the grounder’s kindness towards her.

What the hell was going on there?

She can’t dwell on it. She and Raven go down, save Finn, and Clarke lets herself cry for the first time since the shock of Wells’ death wore off. However this time it’s a worn-out cry. She’s _tired._ She’s so sick of Earth and death and all the people she’s lost. Beginning with her dad.

Of course, that’s when her mom’s voice comes back through.

Clarke pulls herself together, wiping away her tears.

‘I’m here.’

‘The storm is passing. How’s Finn doing?’

‘I think he’ll be okay,’ Clarke manages. 

‘Well that’s thanks to you,’ Abby says. ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And then she ruins it. ‘Clarke, your father would be so proud of you too.’

She stares at the radio, knowing her mom can’t actually see her face broken in anger, but hoping it comes across anyway. 

‘Don’t talk about him.’

Her mother sounds confused. ‘Clarke, I know something’s wrong. Please tell me what it is.’

It tumbles out easily, but with a sob.

‘Dad’s dead because of you.’ Clarke tries not to cry, but she can’t help it. ‘You turned him in. I know it. Wells told me everything before he…’

Before he died on her too.

‘He let me believe that he did it. So that I’d hate him instead of you.’

There’s a silence on the other end of the radio. Clarke glares at it through her tears.

‘Clarke. I want you to listen to me,’ Abby pleads. ‘That was never supposed to happen. Jaha was supposed to talk him out of it--’

She loses her temper.

‘I’m done talking to you.’ She punctuates the words with hitting the radio until the sound of her mother’s voice disappears into static.

All she can think is that she wishes her dad was there instead.

*

_This is not who we are._

Clarke’s words float through his head as they string the grounder up, but he ignores them. She’s wrong.

And then the grounder wakes up.

Bellamy yells at the others to tie him tighter, but inside, he’s scared. For two reasons.

First, the grounder opens his eyes, and one iris is dark, almost black. The other is green. He’s like them. Like him and Clarke and Raven. Odd eyes. That means he’ll have something else odd too. A power, an ability, a gift.

The second reason he’s scared is because the grounder looks directly at him, and he senses nothing.

It’s not like his perception is gone. The others in the room are still briefly thinking of him every now and then, he can count every delinquent on the floor below them, even feel Clarke and Raven and Finn on the ground floor. And his sister, coming up through the hatch, staring at the grounder and him, sending him angry thoughts he’s ignoring.

But even though there’s clear hatred in the grounder’s eyes, anger at being tied up, desperation to be freed clear in the way he strains at his ropes, Bellamy is getting nothing.

‘This isn’t about you,’ he tells Octavia when she pushes him harder. ‘It’s about Jasper and Finn and Roma and Diggs and John.’

_Bullshit it’s about them._

‘You can believe me or not,’ Bellamy growls at her, not even caring that the others might wonder why he’s replying to an argument Octavia didn’t even voice. ‘But we need to know what we’re up against with these people. How many there are, and why they’re killing us.’

The grounder lifts his eyes to Bellamy’s again, and once more a chill fills Bellamy at the silence.

‘I don’t even think he speaks English,’ Octavia spits as a parting gift after he orders Miller to drag her out. ‘He won’t understand you.’

Bellamy breathes heavily. ‘Oh, I think he will.’

But they get nothing out of him, even after the room shakes with the storm, and he hears screaming from below. No matter how many times Bellamy punches him or yells or asks the simplest question, there’s nothing from the grounder.

It’s like he has no thoughts at all.

Then Miller finds the book.

The picture of Octavia makes him want to kill the grounder here and now. What the hell did this creep think he was doing? Octavia thought he was saving her, but he’s been watching her, all of them, the entire time.

And then there were the hundred and two lines. Ten crossed out. Bellamy feels sick as he remembers the faces. The two kids buried on the first day, the ones who’d died in the crash. Trina and Pascal. Atom. Wells. Charlotte. John, Diggs, and Roma just hours before.

He looks back up at the grounder, but there’s still nothing. Just silence, and the black and green eyes staring back.

Clarke climbs up through the hatch then, and he’s relieved, because he doubts she’d leave Finn if he wasn’t stable.

‘Get the hell out of my way,’ Clarke tells the guard, and Bellamy rolls his eyes.

‘It’s okay, let her through.’

_Like I need his permission. Asshole._

Even her thoughts were sarcastic.

She stares at the grounder, and then at him, looking frustrated and disappointed. ‘Well if he didn’t hate us before, he does now.’

Bellamy scoffs internally. The grounders had attacked them their first day on the ground. They were never _not_ hated. Clarke still argues with him, though, and he snaps.

‘How many more of our people need to die before you realise we’re fighting a war?’

She sighs. ‘We’re not soldiers, Bellamy. Look at him. We can’t win.’

‘You’re right. We can’t. If we don’t fight.’

_I’ll never get through to him_.

Clarke doesn’t get to argue with him further, however, because a shout comes from below, and she’s down the hatch quick as lightning, not giving him another thought.

There are more useless questions thrown at the grounder, but still nothing, and Bellamy grits his teeth. He orders Miller to lock the hatch. He doesn’t want anyone coming to interrupt this.

Of course, that’s when Clarke bangs on the door again, and even Miller stands aside for the storm that’s the Princess, angry and desperate.

The blade is poisoned.

‘Do you want him to live or not?’ He asks her, when it all comes to a point. Octavia is still trying to hold him back, her fingers digging into his arms.

Clarke swallows.

_He has to, or Finn will die. He has to._

‘Do it.’

_Not a killer._

Every stroke of the buckle against the grounder’s flesh grinds away at Bellamy’s soul, but he still does it. Still nothing from him. He puts a hand on Clarke’s shoulder when she slumps in defeat in front of the vials.

‘Clarke, you don’t have to be here for this,’ he tells her when he has the nail in hand.

She refuses to leave.

After everything, even with Raven’s desperate attempt, her hands shaking as she electrocutes the grounder, it’s not torture that gives them the answer.

It’s Octavia, slicing her arm before Bellamy can stop her.

_You can’t stop me from doing this, big brother. And now you’ll see I’m right._

The grounder gives up the antidote.

‘Don’t touch me,’ Octavia hisses when he tries to reach for her. It’s done.

He’s a monster, his sister hates him, and they have a hostile, silent grounder strung up in their ship.

_Not a killer._

Bellamy’s not sure that’s true anymore.

*

Clarke surveys the damage from the storm, knowing not everything was as easy to fix as shredded tents and toppled wooden structures.

The nail hangs loose in her hand.

‘We’ll get it cleaned up,’ Bellamy says.

‘I wish this was our only mess.’ He doesn’t seem surprised at her words, just sighs.

She tries to walk away, needing to come to terms with what’s happened, what she allowed Bellamy to do back in the Dropship, to another human being, but he stops her.

‘Clarke,’ he murmurs, and grabs her hand, gentle, taking the nail away. She looks up at him. There’s a soft, pitying expression, and those burning eyes. The gold one still striking in his face, even with his sad frown.

‘Who we are, and who we need to be to survive, are very different things.’

She wishes she could believe that. She wishes she hasn’t seen people die despite her best efforts. She wasn’t sure what was survival and what was selfishness anymore. People died whether she did good or bad things. 

‘What are we gonna do with him?’ she asks, instead of responding to his words. ‘We can’t keep him locked up forever.’

‘If we let him go, he’ll be back. And not alone, next time.’

There was no good choice, was there? If Bellamy let him go, he’d be putting all of them in danger. But if they kept him there, or killed him, did any of them deserve to survive?

It’s all so fucked.

Bellamy looks at her sadly, like he understands her thoughts. ‘It’s not easy being in charge, is it?’

No. No it isn’t easy at all.

He nods as if she’s said the words out loud, and sighs before he walks away.

Bellamy’s right. It isn’t easy being the leader, making these choices. But someone has to be, and apparently that’s them, and apparently, whatever they do, someone’s going to get hurt.

Clarke’s going to have to get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! please let me know what you thought, your likes, dislikes, favourite moments, disappointments. like I said, if the canon is too much for some people, that's fine! I hope someone still finds joy in it, like I did writing it. 
> 
> my schedule for updating this will hopefully, roughly, be every two weeks, but I can't promise anything. This is mostly to spread it out over the current airing season, give me time to write the chapters, and give me time to parse what the show's doing to determine aspects of canon i'll change. Stay safe and I'll see you next time!
> 
> scream with me on [tumblr](http://millipop.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/biakebell)


	3. the beasts won’t stop till we're dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day trip -> we are grounders, part 2.  
> Bellamy and Clarke grow closer when secrets are revealed and the violence between the 100 and the grounders escalates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *laughs nervously as circus music plays in the background*
> 
> Uhhhh. Yeah. Let me just say this now. I am very very sorry about how long this is. It’s literally twice-the-length-nearly-three-times-as-long as the last chapter. I do have a reason for it, though. I only hope the length doesn’t put anyone off wanting to read it.  
> When I originally had the idea for this fic, I wanted to have it as one chapter per season. But I knew how long my chapters got generally (wordy bitch strikes again) so my friend convinced me to split each season into two. Ha. It turns out that my second ‘half’ of season 1 starts with the episode ‘Day Trip’ and we all know how goddamn Bellarke-ful that ep is (it’s a lot of ppls fave ep for a reason guys). And then that’s followed by two extremely good episodes in Unity Day and I Am Become Death, and basically these characters and my hold on what I wanted to include spiralled out of control.
> 
> I’ve edited what I can though, and as much as just the Bellarke scenes are my favourite, some of the other scenes they share with other characters are super important and integral to both them as characters and my concept as a whole and so this is what we’re left with.  
> I have no idea if the next seasons will have this amount of clownery in the word-count, but we’ll see I guess. I hope you enjoy this chapter despite its length (and if it’s a bonus to you, you get an automatic high five from me) because I loved writing it and I think it opens up the world just that bit more.
> 
> Thanks for reading and good luck!

the beasts won’t stop till we're dead.  
all the scrapes on our knees  
will tell you where we've been,  
where we have bled.

oh, we're building a home  
with the mud and the stones and the branches we bind.  
we're all just searching for something  
bigger than we're all able to find.

_woodland_ \- the paper kites

  
  


* * *

Bellamy has to hand it to Raven -- her skills were no joke. In a matter of days, she gets the radio wired to the leftover vid-screens from the Dropship, the ones Jaha’s face had taunted them from as they fell down to Earth. And suddenly, they’re able to talk face to face with their people up in the sky above.

It’s necessary, he knows. The Ark will help them with survival, and the parents who lost their kids will get their closure. But it doesn’t mean dread isn’t crawling up his throat every time he thinks about facing Jaha.

So he spends his time in the top room of the Dropship, staring at the grounder, trying to puzzle out why he can’t feel anything from the man, even as he stares murderously back at Bellamy.

Miller comes up to take over from him, and he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or not. He hates the silence where there shouldn’t be any, because there’s every reason for the grounder to be thinking any number of vengeful, hateful thoughts. But he also can’t stand being in camp right now, where Clarke looks at him beseechingly and his sister resentfully.

Speaking of, Octavia is lurking down next to the ladder when he does descend, glaring at him.

_You can’t keep me away from him forever._

He shakes his head, grimacing. ‘I think you’re underestimating how much I don’t want you seeing him,’ he tells her, and Octavia scoffs.

‘He saved my life, and yours!’

‘That’s what you think,’ he retorts, ‘but you still have no idea.’

‘What is it then?’ Octavia prompts. ‘You do your little psychic routine and find out everything about him? You know, that’s what I don’t get. Why did you even have to torture him? Just for your sick sense of satisfaction?’

Bellamy scowls. ‘You know that’s not how it works, O.’

‘You’re telling me he _doesn’t_ have anything to share with you after you lashed him with ropes and drove a nail through his _hand?_ ’

Unfortunately, his silence in place of a reply is a beacon for her, and she frowns, anger dissipating for a brief moment. ‘Wait. Really?’

‘That’s why you can’t trust him, O,’ he finally says. ‘There’s nothing. Nada. And everyone has something, even the barest first impression of me. But he has nothing. I don’t like it.’

She looks confused, but the expression is soon replaced by a sort of smugness. ‘You finally know what it’s like for the rest of us, huh? You know you can’t actually interrogate and approve everyone I come across?’

‘You’re not getting the point, O. He’s dangerous. We have no idea what his own abilities are, and for all we know, it’s something like mine but stronger. He could have every piece of information on this camp, and if we let him go, he’ll tell his friends all about us.’

She purses her lips stubbornly. ‘You’re wrong about him. And don’t say you know better, because this time you _really_ don’t.’

‘I do. I still have my gut instinct. And it’s telling me that he stabbed Finn, and his friends killed John, Diggs, and Roma. So no, we’re not letting him go, and you’re not seeing him. End of conversation.’

_Why do you even care? You should want me gone. Didn’t I ruin your life?_

He sighs. ‘You know that is not what I meant.’

_Do I?_

Before he can bite back again, Clarke enters the ship, eyebrows high at the sight of him and his sister.

_They’re still arguing._

‘Bellamy,’ she says out loud, and he groans. 

‘What? And before you ask again, no, I am not talking to Jaha.’

‘Relax,’ she rolls her eyes, strolling towards him. ‘Not why I’m here.’ Octavia takes the opportunity to slink away to her post under the ladder, to his relief. 

‘Then what?’ He really isn't in the mood for whatever new project she's found.

Her expression is shrewd. ‘The Ark found some records about a supply depot not that far from here.’

Okay, so he might be interested after all. ‘What kind of supplies?’

‘The kind that might give us a chance to live through winter. I want to go check it out.' She eyes him. 'I could use back-up.’

_Please let him say yes._

He frowns. ‘Why are you asking me?’

She smirks, a rare expression. Clarke’s always so serious; it’s almost a treat to see some humour on her face. ‘Because right now I don’t feel like being around anyone I actually like.’

_Or at least not that much._

Bellamy suppresses a smile at the hidden admission. It’s nice to know she at least likes him a _little_. But not _too_ much, of course. He's fine with that. It’s entirely mutual.

He catches sight of Octavia over her shoulder, still stubborn in her protest, and glances back at Clarke. ‘I’ll get my things. Meet you in ten.’

_Good. I’m glad he’s coming with me._

Bellamy thinks about it as he gathers his pack, fills his water skin. He frowns at the tent housing the vidscreen, their connection to the Ark. And then he looks back at the ship his sister is still waiting in, where there’s a grounder he tortured still strung up.

It's then he makes the decision.

He can’t stay, not with her hating him, not with the Ark coming down. It was hard enough with what he did to Jaha. He’s not sure if he can face the people of the Ark looking at him, knowing he’s the one that killed the radio. The three hundred people gone because of it. And he’ll receive every single thought, every single judgement and stab of hatred from their families.

Bellamy can’t face that.

The rations are out already, and he fills his pack with the jerky and nut mixes. He’s resourceful enough to hunt himself, but he won’t be able to light too many fires, hiding from both the grounders and his own people.

‘That’s a lot of rations,’ Clarke observes, appearing behind him. ‘You know this is only a day trip?’ He just shrugs. 

‘A lot can happen in a day,’ he says, and she frowns.

 _Dramatic asshole_.

He sighs and finishes up, only looking up when he senses his sister walking out of the Dropship, staring hard at him. Bellamy looks back at her. She’s changed so much from just a year ago. Gone were those innocent eyes behind the long bangs. The kid who drank in every word of those old stories. It’s better for her if he’s not here, he tells himself as he follows Clarke out of the camp. The last thought he gets from Octavia is resentful. 

_Be safe._

He’s glad he can’t send anything back.

The walk takes the better part of a few hours, south in a direction they haven’t headed before. It’s more swampy, with sparse forest. Not good for human population, lucky for them. No grounders.

Clarke’s quiet, but her thoughts must be awhirl, because he keeps getting snatches of things. He doesn’t get all of them, because they’re obviously not all about him, but there’s the occasional wisp of a thought if he’s involved in it. An image of him driving the nail through the grounder’s hand. A thought of him and Octavia angry at each other. An _if only he would let me talk to Jaha for him._ Another image, but this time of him hesitating over Atom’s body. 

_Not a killer_.

It doesn’t all come at once, but gradually over the course of the hours where they don’t say much, just discussing the usual camp schedules and grievances. He tries not to let on that he won’t be coming back, that he’ll be leaving her in charge of it all.

Bellamy’s sorry about that, at least. She’s young, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she doesn’t deserve to have him run off on her. But at the same time, it’s what he has to do. And she’ll be fine. Leadership is what she wanted from the start, after all.

‘You know,’ she says when they’re almost there. ‘The first dropship is gonna come down soon. You can’t avoid Jaha forever.’

Great, so she’s decided to bring it up after all. 

‘I can try,’ he says shortly, and she sighs.

They finally get to a clearing, although it’s less of a clearing and more of a large sunken pond, rotten buildings half submerged in dank swampy water.

‘It’s supposed to be around here,’ Clarke says anxiously, her eyes sweeping the landscape.

Bellamy bets that if he gets close enough he’ll feel whatever bunker it is under his feet, but he can’t tell her that, of course.

‘Maybe he’ll be lenient,’ she says suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, and he grits his teeth. Of course she won’t let it go.

 _Not a killer_ , she thinks for the thousandth time.

‘I shot the man, Clarke,’ he snaps. ‘He’s not just gonna forgive and forget.’

 _He doesn’t know that_.

But wisely, she doesn’t continue the argument out loud.

‘Look, let’s split up,’ he says. ‘There’ll be a door around somewhere.’ And if he’s alone without her thoughts of wanting to redeem him, he can concentrate easier.

She agrees and leaves him so she can inch herself down a hill, while he thwacks some grass away from some old bricks, closing his eyes to try and feel the landscape. The long grass, the water, the wildlife in the swamp. And there. Water dripping down, sinking through cracks in the earth. It’s below Clarke’s feet, he realises. Hollow. 

He doesn’t say anything until she finds the door herself, which thankfully isn’t too much later, and together they swing it open, climbing down into the dark.

‘You really think this place hasn’t been touched since the war?’ he asks as she hands him a flashlight.

‘A girl can dream,’ she quips, and he snorts.

He tries not to get distracted by the light glinting off her silver eye as they head further into the darkness, and has to cough a little when he realises she has a similar thought when she turns back to him at one point.

But once they’re down into the depths of the bunker, it’s obvious it’s not going to be their saviour.

‘Damn it,’ Clarke kicks a wall, obviously frustrated. 

He has to agree. ‘Everything down here is gonna be ruined.’ The water dripping down the walls all but confirms that to him, although she still gets excited about finding the damn blankets.

‘You’re excited about some blankets?’

‘Well it’s something!’ she exclaims.

_Ungrateful asshole._

She _really_ likes calling him an asshole. Yet, for some reason, it doesn’t bother him so much anymore. It’s not like she’s wrong.

What does bother him is the lack of anything useful down here. No medicine, no flares, no tents, no--

He frowns at the barrel in the dark. His perception creeps out towards it. Oil, and was that…? In the pretense of being frustrated, he kicks it over, the oil spilling out and revealing what he’d sensed. 

‘Oh my god,’ he murmurs, and gets a kick out of her alarm.

‘What?!’

He grabs one of the guns, grins up at her, not even caring that she hesitates at the sight.

 _He looks way too happy about this._ _But it is nice to see him smile, I suppose._

Bellamy’s too happy at his discovery to care that he snorts at her thought. Clarke probably thinks it’s just in general celebration anyway. And why shouldn’t he? They have _guns_ now, and not just his old one that ran out of bullets when Wells had shot the panther.

Clarke helps him gather them up, handling them like they’re bombs about to go off. 

‘You know the safeties are still on, right?’

She makes a face. ‘I don’t know anything about guns. We weren’t exactly a guard household.’ She frowns at him. ‘How do _you_ know?’

He concentrates on rolling the oil barrel away and casting his eye around for a potential target. His eye catches on some old red tarp, and he shrugs at Clarke. ‘I used to be a cadet, on the Ark.’

_Used to be? Why didn’t he become a guard?_

But Clarke must realise they’re not quite close enough to share backstories, because she just nods. ‘Right. Do we want an X on that?’

‘And you say you know nothing about shooting.’

‘I’m not an idiot, I know what aiming a gun entails. I had a test on this, remember?’

She would have, he realises. The test they all have to take, those of them whose eyes settle into odd colours. ‘I’m assuming that wasn’t your particular talent.’

‘Not so far,’ Clarke murmurs, quiet enough it’s almost an aside for herself. She busies herself with the tarp and hands it to him to hang up.

It’s his turn to be curious now. He’d wondered, but it seems his guess was right. She doesn’t know her skill.

But like her, he doesn’t press it, just breaks open another ration pack, crunching on the sort of addictive nuts as she inspects one of the guns with a suspicious yet curious eye. 

‘Well, this changes everything,’ he tells her. ‘No more running from spears when we can defend ourselves from long distance.’ Bellamy grins again. ‘Ready to be a badass, Clarke?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Look, I’m not going to fight you on bringing them back. I know we need them, but I’m still not happy about it.’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘A pacifist?’

Clarke shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t say that. Just...more violence.’ She says the word like she's tired of it being in her mouth.

Bellamy shakes his head. ‘We’re lucky we found them. It means we won’t be sitting ducks anymore.’ He stuffs his mouth with some more nuts before helping her with the gun. ‘You need to learn how to do this.’

Her mouth sets in a grim line, but she nods once. ‘Alright. Do I just hold it on my shoulder?’ 

He has to smile at the sight of her concentrating so hard, eyes narrowed at the target, the gun sitting awkwardly in her hands. He reaches out to adjust her grip.

‘Yeah, uh, a little higher.’ For some reason, when he touches her shoulder, the closeness causes his perception to go absolutely haywire, like he doesn’t already know there’s another human close to him. A zing shoots up his arm, but it doesn’t seem mutual. Clarke is as steady as ever, aiming with all due seriousness at the target, and he shakes his head to clear it.

‘Um, yeah, that’s good.’ The intimacy of their position, him behind her adjusting her stance, her warmth pressed against his front, suddenly becomes all too obvious to him. He’s not even sure anymore if it’s the perception or just him. So he clears his throat and steps away. ‘Watch and learn.’

In the three seconds it had taken for his freakout, Clarke’s thoughts hadn’t strayed to him once. But he’s almost immediately overwhelmed when her attention turns to him now, even when it’s purely analytical, her eyes roaming over his stance. She’s committing it to memory. He should have known she was a student at heart.

Of course, his first bullet is faulty.

He huffs at her as she lifts an eyebrow, and he tries again. But it still fails. ‘Still watching,’ she says, and he sighs.

‘My bullets are duds. Try yours.’

She lines herself up in front of him again, her silver eye disappearing behind the scope. She’s left-handed, which he hadn’t even noticed before now. It feels like he’s noticing _everything_ about her in this moment. The way her muscles tense along her neck, the way her hair flows down her shoulders, the way her nose is scrunched in concentration.

_Bang!_

There’s a moment of silence, and nothing from Clarke, until --

‘That. Was. Amazing.’

He grins. She lets out a little awed gasp that he almost feels on his skin, and he tries to school his expression back to normal when she turns to him, although he still has to smile at her excitement.

‘Am I horrible for feeling that?’

Bellamy has to grins properly, shaking his head. ‘Try again.’

Serious Clarke returns, then. ‘We shouldn’t waste the ammunition,’ she points out.

‘You need to practice,’ he tries, but she won’t be swayed.

‘No, we _need_ to talk about how we’re gonna keep guns around camp. Where are we going to keep them, who has access…’

Trust the Princess to take the fun out of the best thing they’ve found on the ground since the plant that relieved mosquito bites. And this would _save_ their lives, not just make it a little more bearable. He lets her talk while lining up a shot himself, taking satisfaction in how his aim hasn’t suffered too much in his year of no training (aside from the Jaha incident).

‘You left Miller in charge of the grounder,’ Clarke says after being suitably impressed. ‘You must trust him.’

He knows she means to bring it up in relation to the guns, but he can’t help but let his own thoughts sway back to the camp he isn’t returning to. Miller would be a decent replacement for him, quieter, sure, but steady. Probably exactly what the camp needed, really. He and Clarke would make a good team.

‘You should keep him close. The others listen to him,’ he ends up saying, and immediately regrets it when Clarke’s thoughts immediately turn suspicious.

_Why didn’t he say we?_

‘ _I_ should keep him close? Bellamy, what’s going on? You’ve been acting weird all day.’ He avoids her gaze, but Clarke’s no moron. Her eyes flicker to the rations and he’s made.

_Oh my god. Asshole._

‘All the rations you took. You’re gonna run.’ She says it like she can’t quite believe it, and it rankles him. ‘That’s why you agreed to come with me. You were just gonna load up on supplies and disappear!’

_Fucking asshole!_

‘I don’t have a choice,’ he tells her, stoic, staring her down. She’s glaring at him, so he glares back. It’s easier to be annoyed with her than have to give her a heartfelt explanation. ‘The Ark will be here soon.’

‘So you’re just gonna leave Octavia?’

Like she has a clue what’s going on with him and his sister. Bellamy scowls. ‘Octavia hates me, she’ll be fine.’

_He doesn’t know for sure the Ark will discipline him._

‘You don’t know --’ she tries out loud, but he’s had enough of her thinking she knows better.

‘I shot the Chancellor, Clarke,’ he interrupts her before she can trot out her point fully. ‘They’re gonna kill me. Best case scenario they lock me up, and there’s no way I’m giving Jaha the fucking satisfaction.’

All her energy is focused on him, more arguments boiling up that he already knows the contents of, her refusal to believe him grinding at him. He holds up a hand.

‘Keep practising. I need some air.’

He leaves before she can protest. The bunker seems to close in on him as he strides out. He feels every brick and water droplet and pond scum and human bone and it’s just too much all at once, all pressing in. With Clarke and her thoughts behind him, he sucks in the fresh air outside, still a novelty, looking up at the sky.

The Ark is up there. He’s not exaggerating to Clarke, what he thinks will happen. He’s poor, and he’s already got around the system twice, in hiding Octavia and getting on the Dropship. There’s no way he’s getting away with anything again, and that’s why he has to leave.

Even if it means abandoning them all, Clarke and his sister included.

*

_Bang!_

The bullet tears through the fabric, and the recoil tears through her bones. But it’s not dread she feels. It’s adrenaline, the feeling of _rightness._ She knows how to use this. Her finger sits comfortably on the trigger, her vision zeroing in on the X, like it wants her to go again.

She fights off the urge, though, as much as she wants to, as much as Bellamy encourages her. It’s not responsible, the only bullets they have being the ones in the guns already. 

But more than anything, that feeling of the gun at home in her arms scares her. 

She feels a little bad that she takes it out on Bellamy, when she realises why he came with her. The asshole wants to _abandon_ them, all because he doesn’t know what will happen to him. It’s the most selfish he’s been since the radio.

When he leaves to get some air, she rubs at her face, trying to wish away the headache that’s forming at her temples. The longer she’s down here, the longer she feels dizzy and lightheaded, and she wonders if there’s some sort of toxic gas leak.

The gun winks at her from where she'd set it down on the ground, and before she can blink, she has it in her hands again, the rightness once again thrumming through her. It’s not so much that she loves it, more that...

She knows what she _could_ do with it.

Clarke takes aim at the X again, blinking away another wave of pain, and her vision swims before her eyes. She stumbles backwards, the walls of the bunker pressing in on her all of a sudden, like they could collapse or start moving or…

The gun in her hands feels warm. And like magic, the barrel bends as she holds it, the mouth curving in so she can see inside it, and it’s kind of funny really, she’s never seen it from that perspective, how odd that…

Wait.

Her head clears for a split second, enough for her heart to jump as she realises there’s no bent barrel, just her pointing her gun the entirely wrong way. She throws it to the floor like it’s burning her hands, spinning as the world blurs around her, and then all at once, she’s in her cell.

Her cell. The one on the Skybox, the one covered in her dusty drawings, her fantasies of Earth that never quite came true, despite how beautiful it is in reality.

‘It’s not what you imagined, is it?’

Clarke’s heart soars and then shatters at the sight of her dad, because he’s here, but he’s _dead,_ but she can still hug him, so she does, and it’s _everything._ But it’s not real.

Jake is everything she remembers. Soft. Gentle. A wry smile just for her, the pointed waiting for her to figure it out for herself. The biggest heart she knows. Wanting her to forgive her mother.

‘I’m trying,’ she says to him, the thin veneer of armour that keeps her together cracking under his gaze, because she was always _allowed_ to be vulnerable with him, to not be perfect. ‘I’m trying all the time. But everyone’s counting on me and it’s so _hard_.’ Her voice breaks on the last word, and his arm reaches around her to pull her in. It’s a familiar position, a hug against his chest.

No heartbeat though.

‘I let someone get tortured,’ she continues, like he doesn’t know. Because Jake is everything she remembers, and that’s because that is all he is. A resurrection of her memories

‘Listen,’ he says. He used to say that a lot, every time he was about to give her sage fatherly advice. She used to tease him for it. ‘You’re doing the best you can. And you’ll keep doing that, no matter what happens. No matter what abilities you have, no matter what decision comes your way. And I know your mother doesn’t have your silver eye, but she did the same.’

‘You’re dead because of her. She doesn’t deserve my forgiveness.’

‘Forgiveness isn’t about what people deserve,’ Jake sighs. ‘And you’ll learn that soon enough, just like you’ll learn everything else.’

She frowns. ‘What does that mean?’

But Clarke doesn’t find out. She hears the words _crazy bitch_ erupt from her father's mouth with the wrong voice, before pain bursts through her skull and everything goes black.

*

The world is blurry around him.

But it’s a specific, fuzzy blurry that lets him pick out the minor details while the big picture is a mess. He can feel every leaf on the ground. Every insect crawling through the soil, the birds circling above, the crack of a twig as footsteps stalk towards him.

Bellamy can’t breathe.

‘ _Bellamy Blake_ ,’ says the voice of his nightmares, and Jaha stands before him, hands clasped across a wound in his stomach, a wound that Bellamy remembers the feeling of, the bullet tearing through flesh and guts.

Jaha’s voice doesn’t come through the air, but swims across to Bellamy like they’re thoughts he’s picking up with his abilities. Like the Chancellor, thousands of miles above, is thinking of him, and suddenly Bellamy can sense every drip of his hatred from all that way.

‘I did what I had to do,’ he tells the Jaha in front of him. He doesn’t feel solid, because Bellamy can see him, and sense him in a way, but his perception is playing peek-a-boo with him, saying the man is real one second and fake the next.

It’s dizzying.

‘ _Pathetic. Using your sister to justify your crimes._ '

‘If you’re gonna kill me, just do it.’

‘ _Why should I?_ ’ Jaha sneers. ‘ _Unlike the others, I survived your treachery._ ’

And that’s when the other voices start, whispering in the background. Not quite there, but not quiet enough for him to drown them out. All of the thoughts he feared.

_Murderer. Killer. Traitor. Selfish. You let us sacrifice ourselves for nothing._

‘I didn’t know that would happen,’ he pleads, voice shaking. 

But they stumble closer, figures shuffling towards him out of the fog, faces of people he knew from the Ark. His next door neighbours, the lady who ran the materials cart at the market. A cadet he knew that would sacrifice herself for her family in an instant. He knows them, and they murmur the words over and over.

_Murderer. Murderer._

Not a killer, he tries telling himself. Wasn’t that what Clarke thought? Not a killer. But deep down, he knows she’s wrong. 

They keep crawling towards him, even as he runs through the pond muck and sparse trees, boots getting stuck in tree roots and rabbit holes. He can’t escape them. No matter where he goes, they still surround him, their voices pressing in on him, and Jaha’s is the loudest of all.

‘Kill me, please. I deserve it,’ he begs the man he shot. He feels the slap course through him, smacking him back into the mud. ‘I can’t _fight_ anymore.’

‘Life is a fight,’ Jaha says, merciless, and kicks him in the chest.

It keeps going, never-ending. The Chancellor taunts him, heckles him, beats him to a pulp, and he’s lying still with the pain and voices tumbling over him, wishing he was dead, when something clicks.

Suddenly, it’s like someone’s brought his perception back into single focus, no longer warped and foggy and kaleidoscopic. And there’s someone standing over him with a gun cocked, wanting to kill him. 

‘Nothing personal,’ says the boy he recognises now as Dax.

_Kind of personal._ _I hated the detail he put me on._

The gun clicks. He’s about to die.

But the bullet is dud, thank god, and Bellamy reaches for his gun that he’d been holding just moments before, to hold it back to Dax, to get himself out--

His hand is empty. Dax reloads.

And then he feels _her_ presence, Clarke’s, sneaking towards them from the darkness, her thoughts focused on _saving_ him.

‘Put it down, Dax,’ Clarke’s voice filters through the shadows. It’s scared yet determined, not wavering. She’s holding the gun in perfect posture.

‘Should have stayed down there, Clarke,’ Dax says. ‘I tried not to kill you, but here you are. And Shumway said no witnesses.’

_What is he talking about? Is this to do with Bellamy?_

‘Shumway set it up, gave me the gun to shoot Jaha.’ It’s only after he says it that he realises he answered a thought, not an out loud question. But Clarke doesn’t seem to notice.

‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Dax says. ‘Walk away now.’

‘Put it down,’ Clarke says dangerously, and suddenly, Bellamy realises they’re both squeezing the trigger. 

Clarke’s is faster. But the bullet, of course, is dud, and Bellamy yells as she realises only just in time, scrambling behind the tree. And Bellamy does the only thing he can, roaring to his feet as he senses Dax’s finger squeezing again. He tackles Dax to the ground, taking him by surprise.

They wrestle in the mud. Bellamy has an advantage with his training and perception, knowing each punch Dax pulls, dodging the hardest hits. But Dax is bigger, stronger, and there’s only so much of predicting what a huge guy is about to do that gives Bellamy the upper hand. He’s slammed back into the mud, and he thinks for a second he’s about to be choked to death, when his perception tells him two things.

One, that there’s a bullet casing resting in the mud, arm’s reach from him, if he can just pull free for a second.

Two, that Clarke's coming towards them from the tree, and to his surprise, pulling Dax off him with a shocking amount of strength. She has the much larger boy on the ground, hitting him in places Bellamy doesn’t like to imagine, and yelling something at him. ‘Bellamy, help!’

He grabs the casing from the dirt without looking, surging towards them. Clarke’s somehow holding Dax off, but she isn’t going to last much longer, and she gets punched hard in the ribs, winding her, just as Bellamy gets there.

But she gave him just enough time. Bellamy’s hand swings down without him really registering it, the bullet piercing Dax’s throat.

_How the fuck did they do that?_

It’s a terrifying last thought to hear from Dax as his life ebbs away, and Bellamy feels him disappear. His heart stops beating, his body coming to an eerie still.

Dax is dead.

Bellamy crawls towards where Clarke is already lying against the tree, hand pressed to her ribs.

‘You’re okay,’ she whispers, as much to herself as to him.

But it’s not true. He’s not okay. He’s the furthest fucking thing from it.

*

‘You’re okay,’ Clarke gasps as Bellamy collapses next to her. It’s as much to him as it is to herself, the sight of Dax’s dead body making her look up at the sky to avoid thinking about it. 

Bellamy’s hand is on her knee, and it’s only a few seconds before she realises he isn’t accepting her words, shaking his head. ‘No, I’m not.’

She’s not sure what to say. If he experienced anything like the trip she had, there was a very good chance he _wasn’t_ okay.

‘My mother,’ he says then, and Clarke catalogues the pain on his face, not just from his wounds, she’s sure. ‘If she knew what I’d done. Who I am…’

And suddenly, she understands. Because her dad had brought up the things torturing her: forgiving her mother and struggling with leadership and the choices she’s had to make. 

Bellamy was still thinking about all the things he did to put others in danger. The wristbands, the radio, Jaha. The things that are torturing him.

Clarke’s not sure what to say, wanting to comfort him but not knowing how. Bellamy’s always kept a shield of bravado around him, and now it’s fully gone, and she can see so clearly the frightened, vulnerable boy underneath.

‘She raised me to be better,’ Bellamy croaks in a disgusted tone. ‘To be good.’

‘Bellamy,’ she tries, but he just closes his eyes.

‘All I do is hurt people.’ He sniffs up the blood clogging his nose, and Clarke aches to reach out and _fix_ it for him. But he doesn’t seem to want to meet her eye. ‘I’m a monster.’

Her immediate thought is _no_. He’s not.

Bellamy Blake isn’t a monster. He’s an asshole, and sometimes he's selfish and stupid and dramatic, but he’s always cared so hard. First it was just about his sister, sure. But Clarke just _knows_ that care extends to the others now. She’s seen him around camp, with the younger kids. She saw him with Charlotte, she’s seen him with his friends.

‘Hey,’ she says, voice brittle. She’s still winded, her side aching from Dax’s punch. ‘You saved my life today.’ They saved each other. If she hadn’t tackled Dax, if he hadn’t had the bullet, who knew if they would have survived the assassination attempts. ‘You may be a total ass half the time, but,’ she swallows. ‘I need you. We all need you. None of us would’ve survived this place if it wasn’t for you.’

Every word she speaks she knows to be the truth. Sure, he’d been an ass, but he’d been an ass with an obviously high mark in Earth Skills. He knew how to collect the water in flasks he fashioned, how to build the tents, how to hunt. Whether she liked it or not, they were lucky he’d shot Jaha, that he’d followed his sister down.

He’s been the key to their survival.

Bellamy looks away, turning his head like he can’t handle her words. She sees the self-hatred in his eyes as he stares down at his blood-soaked fingers. He killed someone today, Clarke realises. The other thing he’d been torturing himself for before he realised it wasn’t true. And now, in a way, it was again.

‘You want forgiveness?’ she asks him, remembering her dad’s words to her. Forgiveness wasn’t about what people deserved, her dad had said. Maybe Bellamy still feels like he doesn’t deserve it. But she can still give it to him. ‘Fine, I’ll give it to you; you’re forgiven, okay? But you can’t _run_ , Bellamy. You have to come back with me. You have to face it.’

She gives him a pleading look, but his face suddenly closes off, swinging back to stare at her.

‘Like you faced your mom?’ he asks.

She clenches her jaw. Of course he’d heard about it, the drama that the Princess wasn’t talking to her Chief Medical Officer mother. She tries to swallow back down the hurt, that he’s throwing this back at her.

‘You’re right. I don’t want to face my mom. I don’t want to face any of it.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he manages, and Clarke looks at him again. They’re lost, both of them. But they can’t afford to be.

‘All I think about every day is how we’re gonna keep everyone alive. But we don’t have a choice. And I can’t do it without you, Bellamy. Please, come back with me.’

He sighs, eyes flickering in pain again, leaning his head back against the bark. 

‘I don’t know if I know how to.’

‘Why?’ Clarke asks, trying to read his expression. ‘Everyone looks up to you; we see you as a leader. You know that, right? They look to both of us, and we’re just doing our best.' And your sister is there. Surely you can't want --'

‘Like I said, she hates me,’ Bellamy chokes, staring off into the distance. ‘And I don’t know if I can handle hearing that every day.’

What did he mean? Octavia seemed like the sort to hold a grudge, sure. But often it was more passive-aggressive than outright. She couldn’t even imagine her saying _out loud_ that she hated her brother, let alone in private.

‘It’s not that she says it out loud,’ he mumbles, and Clarke starts at the identical expression.

‘What?’

His eyes widen suddenly, the tiredness fleeing from his face. He’s all alertness, panic, even.

If it wasn’t for his reaction, she might have written it off as a coincidence. But the guilt is all over his face. ‘You just replied to my thoughts,’ Clarke works out slowly. ‘You just said it’s not about what Octavia says out loud, which is what I was just thinking.'

‘Fuck,’ he says, scrubbing his hands over his face like he wants to hide himself. It makes his face even dirtier and bloodier. 

Clarke casts her mind back to every interaction they’ve had, every time he’s said something odd. She’d thought his skill was supposed to be fighting. That was what Octavia had said, off-hand, when someone had asked about her brother’s eyes. It made sense then, but did it now?

She turns her gaze back to Bellamy, who’s looking at her with trepidation. He’s paler than usual, and not just from the blood loss, she thinks.

‘You’re a mindreader.’

He closes his eyes like it’s paining him, but they open slowly to look back at her once he realises she isn’t saying more.

‘Not quite. But I guess it might seem like that.’ His eyes flicker back and forth between her own. ‘I can’t tell how you feel about it.’

‘I…’ Clarke doesn’t really know. She looks at him in a new light now. He’s _known_ things. Did he know about--

‘I don’t know everything,’ he interrupts, rushing to intercept her conclusion. ‘It’s only to do with me, okay? It’s not...it’s perception. It’s not really even to do with minds; it’s about me. Adds to the selfish thing,’ he adds as a bitter afterthought. ‘I know how it sounds.’

Clarke can only blink at him. ‘So, what? You have super perception? You _p_ _erceive_? What does than even mean? Don’t people normally do that?’

‘Not to my extent,’ Bellamy says grimly. ‘I sense anything to do with, well, me. Physical things, but thoughts as well. Intentions. Impressions. Judgements. Threats.’ He sniffs again, wiping more blood from his nose with a scowl. He sinks his posture back into the tree, as if defeated. ‘And now all your worst fears have been confirmed. You’re right. I am a fucking asshole. I’ve used my ability for shitty things, the opposite of what my mother taught me.’ He lets out a humourless chuckle. ‘Bet you’re regretting your words now.’

‘Can’t you tell?’ Clarke finds herself asking, but not in an accusatory tone. She’s just intensely _curious_ now. He’s hidden this from everyone all this time, this massive part of what he experiences.

He glances back at her, confusion furrowing his brow. ‘I don’t know,’ he admits, gruff. ‘You’re curious. But sometimes people hide their hatred, and I can’t always sense everything. You seem like the sort who could do that, hide it away. And I wouldn’t blame you.’

‘I meant what I said,’ Clarke tells him, the words falling out of mouth earnestly. ‘Even now. I do want to know more, but I don’t see why I would be angry.’

‘No? I know your thoughts about me. The private ones, the ones you’d never admit. I know you think I’m a dick, I know that you thought I was a dangerous criminal, that I’m selfish and…’

‘I feel like I remember a lot of other things I’ve thought about you since then,’ Clarke frowns. ‘Like that I notice how much you protect your sister, and that you’re not a killer.’

His face _very_ visibly tenses at those words. ‘Not anymore,’ he says bitterly. Dax’s body lies just feet from them.

‘Self-defence isn’t grounds for making you a monster,’ Clarke tells him, soft. ‘And neither is having an ability like this that you’ve had to hide.’

Bellamy blinks slowly, confused and skeptical all at once. ‘You sure about that?’

‘I don’t know mine,’ Clarke says. ‘But if I had yours, I would have hid it too. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you for any of it.’ She pauses. ‘Am I lying?’

‘No,’ he admits. ‘How do you know I can do that?’

‘You said you knew intentions,’ she says. ‘So right now, you know mine. I’m still giving you forgiveness. I still want you to come back with me. I don’t care about your abilities. I’ll learn to live with it. We’re those kids’ leaders, Bellamy, and I’m not letting you back out for _any_ reason.’

He opens and shuts his mouth for a few seconds, shocked. But when he sees, or senses, or whatever it is he does, that she’s not lying, he shakes his head.

‘Jaha will kill me when he comes down. And the others will hate me if they find out what I truly am…’

‘They already know who you are, Bellamy,’ she tells him. ‘You’re their leader, like me. You’re someone they look up to, the one that protects all of us. Jaha and the Ark are still in space, and as I keep telling you, you don’t know what will happen if you just talk to them. Whatever happens, we’ll figure something out,’ she presses.

Bellamy lets out a long breath. The tension finally loosens from his shoulders. ‘Well, can we figure it out later?’ he says, and the exhaustion is evident. She feels it too, even as the pain in her side fades.

‘Sure. Whenever you’re ready,’ she sighs.

They lay under the tree for at least half an hour, silent, just watching the moon crawl across the sky, letting the aches and pains from their fight subside. Clarke struggles not to think about him too much, now self-conscious of every thought. She fails, she knows she does. But if he does notice her stray thoughts, he doesn't give an indication, seemingly lost in his own head.

But finally, with a groan and after probably too long, Bellamy sits up, sighing at the dead body. At everything, probably. ‘We have to go back, or they’ll send people out after us.’

They decide to drag Dax back to the bunker, figuring they can send someone to retrieve his body later. They load up two tarps with a quarter of the still oil-slicked guns and what they can from the case of orange blankets, fashioning a way to carry it all between them easily.

And then they head home.

It’s quiet at first, a heavy tension between them from their lengthy heart-to-heart. But then it’s easy to resort back to their co-leader dynamic, deciding how they’re going to distribute the guns, what precautions they need to take.

Bellamy is already more open to her ideas for rules and warnings of caution, nodding along with her suggestions of who they can trust, offering a few more names of his own.

The knowledge of what he can sense from her weighs heavy, though. Which things did he know she was going to say, what was she unconsciously giving up to him?

‘Nothing,’ he says, and she startles. He grimaces. ‘I can’t glean anything from you that isn’t conscious. You have to know it yourself for me to receive it, even if it is just for a split second.’

‘That’s why you were good at fighting, wasn’t it?’

He nods. ‘Knowing someone’s intentions is invaluable. All I had to work on was my own reflexes, reaction times.’ He gives her a sidelong look. ‘You know, you’re still taking this...weirdly well. I didn’t really expect anyone who found out to trust me ever again. Not that you ever trusted me in the first place, but…’

‘If anything,’ Clarke says, ‘I trust you now that I do know.’ When he lifts an eyebrow, she shrugs.

‘Now it all makes sense. Things that didn’t before. And it’s hard, not knowing what mine is. At least you do know.’ She casts him her own critical stare. ‘Who _does_ know about it? If you’re so afraid for people to find out. Surely it’s not just you.’

‘My mother knew,’ he acknowledges. ‘And Octavia does.’

He picks up on her surprise, although she’s unsure if it’s her body language or the thought itself.

‘Both,’ he replies to her silent wondering. ‘It’s a bit hard to hide, when she’s your sister living under the floor, in the apartment you live in that she can never leave.’

‘I guess so,’ Clarke muses. ‘I mean, I’ve only known her a few weeks. Did she take it well?’

‘She was six,’ he snorts, ‘when my gold eye came in. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. Wanted it for herself. Still does.’

And Clarke understands the unspoken words. Octavia’s jealous of him, and it creates tension between the siblings.

And now he understands that _she_ understands. It’s a bit to wrap her brain around.

‘Hence why it was an accident I told you,’ he says, wry, but there’s no more panic in his voice, more like a mix of resignation and surprise. 

‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she promises, and he stares at her for a moment before nodding brusquely.

‘I know.’

They’re getting closer to camp now, only fifteen minutes, tops. They tread more carefully, aware that it means they might be closer to grounders, but nothing disturbs them. They’re five minutes out before Clarke summons the courage to mention what he probably knows she’s been brooding on.

‘I think I know a way to get you a pardon from Jaha,’ and like she thought, he doesn’t panic, just clenches his jaw.

‘I know you have a plan,’ he explains. ‘But I don’t know what it is. That information isn’t available to me.’

‘It’s from what Dax said,’ Clarke says, wishing he didn’t wince. It was self-defence, him killing the other boy. She soldiers on anyway. ‘Shumway set it up, you said. I know him. He’s high up in the guard. Why did he?’

‘No idea. I knew it was shady, knew he was keeping things from me, but.’ He swallows. ‘I was desperate.’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Clarke tells him, and he frowns. ‘What matters is that someone gave you that gun, you didn’t do this of your own volition. Someone wanted you to kill Jaha. And no matter the reason why, that information has to be more important to him than your punishment.’

The walls come into view. Their home, against the odds. The mess of sticks and plates of metal and tarp and sharpened stakes. It’s theirs, and they’re going to protect it.

He stares at the walls, not at her. ‘I’m not saying yes, but.’ He sighs. ‘I’ll think about it.’

It’s as much as she can get now, but she doesn’t mind. They head in.

Of course, it’s into the middle of mass panic. The grounder has escaped, Clarke hears Miller shout, and she sends a worried look at Bellamy.

But he just grits his teeth, gripping the bags tighter.

‘Let the grounders come,’ he yells, striding into the panicking crowd. Clarke keeps pace with him. ‘We’ve been afraid of them for far too long. And why? Because of their knives and spears. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being afraid.’

He has a knack for speeches, Clarke thinks, and registers the slight tick in the corner of his mouth when he looks at her. An acknowledgement of her silent compliment, and a question.

 _Ready,_ she thinks to him, and knows the message is received. They spill the bags out onto the ground, revealing the guns to the crowd of delinquents.

‘These are weapons,’ she adds onto Bellamy’s speech. They’re leading together, and that means both of them are giving their points. ‘Not toys. And we have to be prepared to give them up to the guard when the dropships come. But until then,’ she pauses. ‘They’re going to help keep us safe.’

‘And there’s plenty more where these came from,’ Bellamy continues seamlessly. ‘Tomorrow we start training. And if the grounders come, we’re gonna be ready to fight.’

Clarke can feel Finn’s incredulous stare, the hesitance even from Octavia. But no one says anything, and Clarke gives her final agreement, risking a glance at Bellamy to find his own concluding nod.

They’re together in this now, more than they ever have been. And even though _everything_ has changed, she can’t help feeling a little more hopeful that things are going their way.

*

He finds Octavia staring out into the woods, her mind pointedly blanking him out. They both know she can’t keep it up for long.

Bellamy settles the orange blanket around her, relieved that she accepts it without argument, because he’d tear his hair out knowing she chose to froze to death out of spite.

‘I don’t expect you to forgive me,’ he says to her back, and she doesn’t turn around. ‘But you’ll have to find a way to live with me. Because I’m not going anywhere.’

He wonders if she knew his intention to leave when they parted that morning. It’s possible she did. She’s his sister, after all, and she knows him better than a lot of people do.

But if she does, it’s not revealed to him. She says nothing, only turning around when Clarke’s voice calls his name.

 _It’s time_ , Clarke thinks to him, and he marvels at the Princess for a second. She’s already taken it all totally in stride, learning how to communicate with him, not for a moment bothered about the lack of reciprocation.

He’s agreed to to talk to Jaha, after all. It can’t hurt, is what Clarke keeps telling him, and he has to admit she’s got him with the logic. If Jaha decides not to pardon him, he’ll be in exactly the same place as before, only with preparation. But she’s still certain their trump card will win the Chancellor over.

Bellamy starts towards the tent, and pauses. He looks back at Octavia. 

He has to know.

‘The grounder escaping,’ he says. ‘Was that you?’

‘I had nothing to do with it,’ Octavia says stiffly, and his heart sinks.

She’s lying, and they both know it. But there’s nothing he can do right now, if he doesn’t want to lose her.

‘Thanks for the blanket,’ she says tightly.

He lets it go.

Jaha is already on the blurry vid-screen when he and Clarke sit down, sliding on the headphones. His heart gives a lurch at the sight of the man, still dressed in the same outfit he’d been shot in, the same clothing he’d hallucinated hours before.

 _We’ve got this,_ Clarke nods at him.

‘Mr Blake, I’ve wanted to talk to you for some time now.’

How Bellamy wishes his perception worked through a screen. He’d give anything to know exactly how much the man actually hates him.

‘Before you do,’ Clarke interrupts firmly, like they planned. ‘I’d like to say something.’

Jaha is impassive, silent.

‘When you sent us down here,’ Clarke begins. ‘You sent us to die. But miraculously, most of us are still alive. In large part, that is because of him,’ her head gestures decisively towards him. ‘Because of Bellamy.’

He can’t help but look at her, her confident, unwavering stare at Jaha. Her willingness to defend him, after he’s been such an asshole. Somehow she’s found it in her to look past it all, and _see_ him.

She glances at him too, and they share a couple of seconds of eye contact that has his heart racing, because there’s no lie in her words, and _trust_ in her gaze and thoughts.

‘He’s one of us,’ she continues. ‘And he deserves to be pardoned of his crimes just like the rest of us.’

Jaha’s expression remains unchanged, when Bellamy finally tears his eyes back to the screen.

‘Clarke, I appreciate your point of view, but it’s not that simple.’

_Your turn._

‘It is,’ Bellamy says, and Jaha’s eyes dart to him. ‘If you want to know who on the Ark wants you dead.’

Clear and succinct, like they’d practiced.

The Chancellor is silent, and Bellamy exchanges another brief look with Clarke.

_Trust me._

Jaha leans into the camera, deliberate.

‘Bellamy Blake. You’re pardoned for your crimes.’

The shock settles over him at the words, and he has to bite his lip and look down, because she was _right_ , and he doesn’t even care that her own smile has a hint of smugness to it.

_See. You’re better than you know._

‘Now, tell me who gave you the gun,’ Jaha’s voice is dangerous now, and he takes a deep breath.

‘Shumway. From the guard. He came to me twenty minutes before drop. He was the one who arrested my sister. He knew how desperate I was.’

Jaha’s eyes drink him in, and nods, as if confirming to himself that Bellamy must be telling the truth.

‘We good?’ Clarke asks, and Jaha nods slowly. 

‘Yes. We’re good.’

They hang up the video and he has to sit there for a second, marveling at what just happened.

 _I told him so_ , she thinks a second before she opens her mouth, and he holds up a hand.

‘I got it,’ he says, and she ducks her head, smiling again.

‘Well I did. Now you’re a delinquent like the rest of us.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be like the rest of you,’ he says, but she shakes her head.

‘You always were. You’re one of our leaders, and that means you’re one of us. The hundred and first, okay?’

_Don’t argue with me on this._

He has to huff. ‘Fine. I won’t. The hundred and first.’

‘Good,’ she smiles again, and he wants to commit the sight to memory, just for its rarity.

‘Alright. I’m ready to crash.’ He shifts awkwardly. ‘I can’t sense anything that’s not a threat when I’m asleep. So…’

‘So it’s my time to think freely.’ Clarke concludes as she lifts an eyebrow at him. He shrugs and she softens. ‘Thanks. But we’re good, okay? I really don’t mind if you know I think you’re an asshole.’

‘As long as we’re clear,’ he agrees. 

It’s nice. To have someone he can trust. 

Just a little.

*

She doesn’t want to check on Finn. Not when she knows what he’s going to say. It’s a bit like she has Bellamy’s power, she thinks wryly, but really it’s because Finn has made no secret on what he thinks of weapons, and of Bellamy for that matter.

But she’s the camp’s only healer, so she’s the one that has to duck into his tent, still feeling irrationally guilty at invading Raven’s space.

‘I need to check this,’ she tells him, impassive, and his eyes train on hers.

‘Guns? Really?’

She doesn’t want to have this conversation with him, but knowing Finn, he won’t let it rest.

‘With the grounder escaping we have to expect retaliation. We have to be prepared.’

They’re Bellamy’s arguments, even if she agrees with them, and Finn scoffs.

‘Our ancestors wanted to be prepared too. So they built bombs.’

Clarke grits her teeth. ‘Rifles are not the same as nukes.’ What is she supposed to say? That they should lay down their weapons and let the grounders pick them off?

‘In Bellamy’s hands they are,’ Finn protests, and she stares.

He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t _know_ Bellamy, which she guesses is understandable, but he’s shown he’s more than ‘whatever the hell we want’ countless times to the group since their first days here.

Finn’s just being wilfully ignorant.

‘Clarke, come on,’ he presses when she doesn’t agree. ‘He’s dangerous. You can’t predict what he’s gonna do.’

‘There’s no perfect answer, Finn--’

‘The grounder saved Octavia’s life, and Bellamy brought him back here and tortured him. I don’t know if it’s his eye or just how he is--’

‘If he hadn’t brought him back here, you’d be dead,’ Clarke says to him icily.

‘He’s dangerous, he’s hiding something about his power--’

‘I trust him!’ Clarke cuts him off, surprised at her own words. It’s not that she didn’t know, but she hadn’t thought she’d be ready to admit it to Finn.

Finn gapes at her. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I am,’ Clarke lifts her chin stubbornly.

‘Clarke, you and Bellamy are leading us down a dangerous road. I don’t know if it’s because you share that you have a…’

‘Even if it was that, which it isn’t,’ Clarke replies. ‘He’s proved to me that he’s doing things in everyone’s best interests now, okay? You don’t have to trust him, but I do.’

Finn stares at her, reproachful. ‘I wish you would have talked to me about it first.’

Like he was there with them at the bunker, or had any clue what Bellamy’s motives actually were. As if she needed his approval to give her trust out.

‘I wish you’d talked to me about a lot of things,’ Clarke edges out, taking satisfaction in his guilty expression. ‘But you didn’t.’

Right on time, Raven appears in the tent and there’s an awkward quiet as Clarke leaves them. She wishes she didn’t feel so guilty, because it wasn’t her fucking fault.

She leans against a tree and sighs, eyes drooping. Finally time to sleep.

And if she thinks about Bellamy’s guilt-ridden, blood-soaked face, and his relief and gratitude later on as Jaha pardoned him, well.

He’s asleep. And he doesn’t have to know.

***

Early on Unity Day, Bellamy finds he’s in yet another (it’s becoming depressingly, increasingly frequent) position of being at odds with his sister.

She avoids him in the morning, and the only reason they end up having the fight they do is because they run into each other in the mess tent and tempers rise quickly.

‘Stop invading my privacy!’ Octavia is screaming at him, and he’s clamping back a retort about never having had privacy a day in his life since she was born. It won’t help him, and things are already fraught.

‘You know that’s not what I’m doing. We both know you lied to me.’

Octavia shakes her head, clenching her jaw. ‘You’re impossible to lie to. I should be allowed to have my own secrets.’

‘Not when those secrets affect the good of the group,’ he fires back. ‘Releasing that grounder has put us all in danger. There’ll be an attack any day now--’

‘No there won’t!’ she insists.

‘And how would you know that? He’s a _grounder_ , O. We tortured him--’

‘That was you!’

‘--and there’s no way we aren’t getting retaliation for that!’

She just stares back at him in a stony silence, keeping her mind furiously, purposely blank, and he sighs.

‘He’s dangerous. I’m trying to protect all of us.’

‘I don’t need your protection.’

Bellamy feels his jaw jumping again. ‘Like I said. This isn’t just about you.’

His sister looks away. ‘Look, Bellamy. I may not have the powers you have…’

_But I wish that I had his power._

‘...and see when people are lying or their intentions or whatever. But you couldn’t see his either, and I know it in my _gut_. He’s not gonna hurt us.’

There she was with the naivety. It frustrated him to no end.

‘He stabbed Finn, O--’

‘In self-defence!’

‘We were _rescuing_ you--’

‘He saved me! I don’t care what you think, I know what I saw! He saved me, and he saved you when I asked him to.’

She looks like she regrets those words immediately, and Bellamy gapes.

‘What do you mean by that? He understood you?’

‘I’ve _tried_ telling you. When you were out in the woods that day he did things to save you.’

‘Because you asked?’ he can’t help but scoff, and she juts her chin out.

‘I think so, yes.’

‘You think so.’ Bellamy lets out a deep breath. ‘I can’t deal with this right now. I have to make sure we’ve got security covered for Unity Day. Just,’ he closes his eyes. ‘Don’t leave camp. It’s not safe.’

Octavia doesn’t say anything as he leaves, and he tries to convince himself that the pointed silence from her isn’t her hiding anything.

He watches the pageant video from afar, going inside to brief the next watch when he can’t take it anymore, and runs into Clarke filling up her canteen.

‘Not watching the pageant, Princess?’

She quirks an eyebrow. ‘It gets a bit old when you still remember your lines from when you were part of it when you were six,’ she says, and he grins.

‘Sorry to bring up traumatic experiences. Should have known you were _that_ kid.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ Clarke rolls her eyes, and her smile fades a little, becoming sadder. ‘I did it with Wells. We rehearsed for days, because he wanted to be perfect for his dad.’

Bellamy watches her eyes fix on the distance as she obviously reminisces about her dead best friend, and he joins her at the water spout.

‘I am sorry,’ he says, and she blinks.

‘For what?’

‘About Wells. I don’t think I ever got to say that after it happened, or even after Charlotte.’

‘Well, we weren’t close,’ Clarke remarks, but she nods. ‘And it’s not like you liked him.’

‘That’s not true,’ he finds himself saying, and she lifts an eyebrow. 

_Really?_

One day he’s going to have to come to terms with her knowing about his ability and not being afraid to use it, but it still gives him a little shock to the system, the knowledge she’s using it purposely, _willingly._

‘I hated his father, and what he stood for. What you both stood for, really,’ he adds, and she rolls her eyes. ‘But he seemed like a good guy. And I’m sorry I forced the wristband off him. And I’m even more sorry he’s dead.’

Clarke’s eyes study him for a second, as if trying to find an untruth in his words. But then she nods seriously.

‘Thanks. For what it’s worth, he hated you,’ she says, and he chokes, but she looks smug. ‘But I think he would have come around to you eventually. He was the forgiving type.’

He chuckles softly. ‘Well that’s a relief,’ he says, only half joking.

_I know it is._

Clarke Griffin already knows him a little better than he likes.

She’s looking at him, contemplative, but it’s not anything to do with him, at least not yet.

‘What?’

She bites her lip. ‘I’ve just been thinking about it all. Unity Day, the grounders.’ She frowns. ‘You know I never asked you. What did he think of you?’

The grounder, she means, and he winces. 

‘He didn’t.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means all I got was silence.’

Clarke’s eyebrows lift. ‘Is that normal?’

‘No,’ he says, grim. ‘It’s not. But he was like us. Maybe he had something that could help him.’

‘Hmm,’ Clarke looks troubled. ‘What if it’s to do with language? You’ve only ever been around people with the same linguistics as you.’

He shakes his head. ‘It shouldn’t work like that. I can get images just as well as sentences.’ Bellamy heaves a sigh himself. ‘Whatever it is, I don’t trust it. And it means we have no idea what to expect.’

Clarke gives him a wry look. ‘Well, let’s hope this Unity Day isn’t quite as violent as the original.’

And before he can comment on that, she leaves, and he’s left wondering exactly how much she’s interested in that history, because it’s getting unnerving how on the same level they are.

*

Despite what she tells Finn about Unity Day giving people hope, she’s more skeptical of it than she lets on. And she doesn’t want to let his last comment about not wanting violence to get to her, but it does.

She thinks about what Wells would think of the guns, of what they’ve been through with the grounders. Of her letting the others torture the one that stabbed Finn.

It’s a credit to Bellamy that he gets her out of her funk, after she’s retreated to the water tent when the speech the kids are reciting is word-for-word what she and Wells had learnt almost twelve years ago.

It feels like a lifetime.

But Bellamy reminds her, probably not on purpose, that Wells was a good person. If, despite him being the Chancellor’s son (and even by her admittance, a little bit of a do-gooder) _Bellamy_ still liked him, well...it’s nice to know her best friend was loved, even in small ways.

The memories of her and Wells propel her out to watch the end of the pageant, although it cuts off into static half-way through. It even makes her fondly indulgent of the rapidly growing party, the hooch Monty created passed around liberally and the delinquents growing more and more raucous.

Despite what other people thought, she and Wells _had_ made it to their fair share of parties, and even though Wells never drank, they knew how to have fun.

Still, she spends the initial portion of the party being responsible. After dealing with some minor injuries in the Dropship, she checks on the comms with Raven, cleans up after some of the messier kids, and finally makes her way through the crowd of yelling teenagers after night falls.

She finds Bellamy up near the Dropship, staring out over the party with a watchful eye. He can’t help but be the big brother type, apparently. There isn’t even a drink in his hand, just an apple. But he’s still smiling, and it’s a nice look on him.

Of course, now that she’s thought that, he’s going to know, but Clarke can’t quite bring herself to care.

‘Hey,’ she greets him, and he lifts an eyebrow in greeting, as well as giving her a half smile. He’s in an unusually good mood. ‘The comms are still dead. They cut out during the pageant.’

She may have had a change of heart watching it, but she doubts he did, and he confirms that with a grin.

‘Best Unity Day ever,’ he says, and she laughs a little at the mirth on his face. She hasn’t seen him smile so much in a while, and he has _dimples._

 _You should smile more,_ she thinks directly to him, and he flushes a little but doesn’t drop the grin, taking another bite of his apple.

‘Is that a demand, Princess?’ 

If she didn’t think better of it, he might be flirting. And Clarke _knows_ he’s hot, and knows that he knows it, and also knows that he knows that _she_ knows.

It’s a lot of knowing.

For now, though, he’s just an attractive asshole, one that she trusts with her life, sure, and her co-leader of over eighty delinquent teens, but still. A hot _asshole_.

‘A suggestion,’ she replies. If he’s affected at all by her thoughts he shows no sign of it, apart from a smirk that she’s sure would be there anyway.

Clarke looks out over the crowd. The hundred are letting loose, possibly for the first time since their initial nights on the ground. It’s been a lot to handle for them all, she knows. Dealing with Jasper and all the deaths after. And of course, the grounder.

‘Do you really think now’s a good time to be having a party?’ she finds herself commenting to Bellamy. ‘I mean, the grounder is out there--’

‘Grounders,’ Bellamy corrects, emphasising the plural in that asshole way of his that’s still sort of endearing. ‘By now the bastard has made it home. Probably putting together a lynch mob.’

He doesn’t mean to scare her, but he does. Clarke’s throat jumps, and he must realise, either from her face or otherwise, because his expression softens.

‘Relax, I’ve got security covered. No matter what abilities that guy has, he won’t get through twelve focused gunners.’ He studies her for another second and then tilts his head. ‘Why don’t you go get a drink? You look like you could use one.’

‘Reading my mind again?’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Only if you needing a drink is because of me,’ he points out, and she grins. 

‘Who says it isn’t?’ But she looks out at the kids (although they’re her own age, really). She lets her shoulders drop, breathing out a heavy sigh. ‘I could use more than one,’ she acknowledges to Bellamy, and he smirks.

‘Then _have_ more than one.’

She ducks her head. He’s right. She needs a break from leadership for once. As much as she’s glad it’s the two of them in charge, it’s goddamn _tiring_.

‘Clarke, the Exodus ship carrying your mother comes down here in two days,’ Bellamy says, all his understanding and focus on her. It’s more than a little distracting, having those eyes on her. ‘After that,’ he smirks, ‘the party’s over. Have some fun while you still can.’ His eyes soften. ‘You deserve it.’

She knows he’s right, and it’s even more gratifying coming from him. Especially when he was all about the privileged doing the hard-work, in the beginning. They’ve come so far, in understanding each other, and she lets out a little smile when she sees his own sheepish look.

‘Yeah, okay,’ she decides, turning towards the party. She shuffles down the hill a little before turning back to him for a second. Up there, looking out over them all. Protecting them.

 _So do you, by the way,_ Clarke thinks to him, and he pauses to catch her eye, giving her a grin like they’re in on the same joke. Which they are, she supposes.. He quirks an eyebrow.

‘I’ll have my fun when the grounders come,’ he quips, and she has to roll her eyes, even if it’s fond. 

Fond. They really have come a long way.

‘Alright,’ she gives up, and turns her back to properly enter the party.

‘Unity Day,’ she hears him mutter to himself after she leaves, and she smiles again as she accepts a cup from an enthusiastic Jasper.

Unity Day indeed.

The delinquents seem surprised when she joins in, sharing glances and raised eyebrows. But Sterling and Fox let her join their game and seem to loosen up as she shows she isn’t _always_ the hardass they know her as.

At least until Finn catches her first attempt at the cup game and she’s dragged away, because apparently she’s never allowed a single break.

‘I need you to come with me, but I can’t tell you why.’

Clarke gives Finn a baffled look. He really has no clue who she is. Like she’d ever go somewhere on Earth without a solid plan in place, let alone knowing where the hell they’re going or what the hell Finn wants.

‘Finn, tell me why,’ she demands, and he shakes his head, moving to put his hand on her back. She brushes it off, glaring at him. ‘Don’t.’

He hesitates, looking guilty for a second, and then takes a deep breath, looking at her straight in the eyes.

‘I set up a meeting with the grounders.’

What? She looks at him, aghast. ‘A meeting? What the hell does that mean? How? With _who_?’

‘I was just with the grounder we had in the Dropship,’ Finn says, like it’s a totally normal statement from someone who got _stabbed_ by said guy. ‘His name is Lincoln.’

‘He _spoke_ to you--?’

‘It’s not important,’ Finn insists, and Clarke stares at him. Of course it’s important. It totally washes her theory about foreign language inhibiting Bellamy’s abilities, which meant that whatever prevented Bellamy from sensing thoughts from the grounder _definitely_ came from that eye of his.

And that was dangerous.

‘If we want to live in peace--’ Finn is saying, and Clarke interrupts him before he goes on yet another pacifist rant.

‘Finn, we can’t live in peace with people who’ve done nothing but kill us.’

‘Can you think of another way to stop the bloodshed?’

‘Yeah,’ Clarke retorts. ‘With the guns that the guard brings down.’

Finn scoffs. ‘You really want a war? Because at this rate, that’s what’s coming.’ 

Clarke pauses. As much as she disagrees with Finn about his stance on fighting back, he was right about this. The diplomat in her wants peace as much as him. It’s the skeptic in her that’s telling her it won’t work. And she has no idea which side of her is going to win here.

‘Look,’ Finn says. ‘I know it’s a long shot. But this is our world now, and I think we can do better than the first time around.’

Damn Finn, always appealing to the best side of her. He’s right. She doesn’t want a war, not least because it means their side _will_ retain losses. And she especially doesn’t want that.

He watches for her answer with pleading eyes as she hesitates. And then he deals the final card.

‘I trust him.’ She knows it’s his way of throwing her words about Bellamy back in her face, and she purses her lips.

‘I don’t,’ she says firmly, and he deflates, staring at her with disappointment. And maybe she’s weak. Maybe that’s why she continues. ‘But if we go, we have to bring back-up.’

Finn’s briefly lit up eyes close over. ‘No way, we’re not bringing guns. We agreed no weapons, and if we do this, we have to give it a fair shot.’

Or make sure they’re in with a fair shot, if things go south, Clarke thinks sourly. Finn was many things, and idealistic and naive were two of them.

It’s why she doesn’t find it too troubling to stare him in the eyes as she lies, feigning reluctance.

‘Okay. I’ll meet you at the gate in five.’

She sees his relief at her words, and doesn’t let herself feel guilty as he takes off to get his pack, and she takes off to get Bellamy.

A fair shot. Now that was something she needed.

*

Bellamy’s night is going well for once. 

He hasn’t seen Octavia, which is just as well because they’re not in a good place right now. She’s probably avoiding him, and he stops himself from searching for her absently with his senses. It’ll just make him annoyed.

Instead he watches over the delinquents as they get drunker and drunker. It’s probably their last night of freedom, after all. They deserve to forget the dangers for a little, have fun, let loose. They’ve been locked up in a prison for a portion of their lives. Despite the inevitable grounder backlash around the corner, he wants them to live a little.

Clarke especially. He loses track of her after she vanishes into the crowd of kids, but he sees the glint of gold hair every now and then. Their conversation before had sparked something in him, something that had been building since he saw her with Atom, since they became co-leaders, since she sat by him the other night and forgave him and accepted him.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty too. He thinks of the smile on her face earlier that night, the one that only comes out when she’s broken out of that serious shell of hers, and he has to grin himself.

Him liking Clarke Griffin. Who would have thought?

Speaking of the Princess, he’s finished helping a too-drunk kid to bed when she strides towards him, a hurried look on her face.

‘Hey, I need to talk to you.’

‘Having fun yet, Princess?’ he can’t help but tease, but she frowns.

_I’m serious._

‘You always are,’ he sighs. ‘So talk.’

She’s wearing a grim, slightly guilty, slightly exasperated expression.

‘Finn set up a meeting with the grounders.’

What.

 _What?_ He feels his own face turn still, stone. He stares at Clarke. Has she taken leave of all of her senses?

‘I’m leaving to go talk to them,’ Clarke winces, like she knows what he’s thinking instead of the other way around.

‘Because you figure that impaling people on spears is code for “let’s be friends”?’ he asks, aghast. ‘Have you lost your damn mind?’

Clarke sighs. ‘You know I haven’t. Look. I know it’s crazy. But I think it might be worth a shot.’ She meets his angry gaze. ‘We do have to live with these people. If we sort it out now…’

Bellamy pulls back from yelling, because he knows it won’t help, and she’s got something else to ask him, he can tell, although she hasn’t thought it directly yet. ‘They’ll probably gut you and string you up as a warning,’ he says, terse, and she stiffens.

‘Well, that’s why I’m here. I need you to follow us. Be our backup.’

Ah, so that’s what she’s here for. She’s looking at him in askance, tense, but there’s still that steady trust there. The trust that appeared the other night, the one she’s put in him despite everything.

He eyes her. ‘Does Finn know about this?’

 _Finn doesn’t need to know_. 

Bellamy gazes at her for another long second, but she looks determined. And if she wants him to come as back-up on this suicide mission, he isn’t saying no.

He gives her a little nod. 

_And Bellamy? Bring guns._

‘You got it, Princess.’ She sighs as if relieved. 

‘I’ll leave a trail for you to follow, in case we get out of range for you.’ She cocks her head slightly. ‘How far is that, exactly? I know it’s not forever.’

Bellamy huffs. ‘I won’t know until you go, but I know you better than I know a stranger. I should be able to sense you from a few hundred metres away.’

‘Alright.’ She meets his eye. ‘Thanks.’

‘You can thank me if Spacewalker doesn’t get us all killed.’

Clarke sighs. ‘I’ll see you there.’

Bellamy watches her go with a grimace, but he didn’t lie to her. He’s not letting her go alone. Guns. He needs guns.

And another gunner. He casts his eye over the party. His real gunners are on watch, and he’s not sacrificing the protection of the camp for anything. Who else could shoot, though? They needed more than just him. They needed someone who could face a grounder.

Who’d come with him to find Octavia? Who’d been in the cave? 

Finn. And Jasper.

He asks around, and eventually finds the kid in the gun tent, where Raven is still bent over the ammunition table in her red jacket. Good, both the things he needs in one place.

Jasper takes the news in stride, albeit looking a little alarmed. But when Bellamy reaches for the ammo, Raven sticks her hand out to stop him.

‘If you’re planning on shooting things, you’d better think twice about those. I haven’t checked them.’ 

Bellamy likes Raven, despite himself. She’s annoying, has bad taste in boys (although he guesses that Clarke does too, in the same respect), and did once hold a knife to his neck.

It was sort of justified though. And she had volunteered to check over their guns and bullets, even if she’s way more methodical and anal about it then he has the patience for.

‘Give me some bullets that work then,’ he tells her, annoyed, and she turns to him in the way he knows means she’s trying to challenge him.

‘What do you need them for?’

He hesitates. He’s not an idiot, and he’s not unobservant. Clarke and Finn had had a thing in those first few weeks, and Raven arriving had thrown tension into the entire situation, which he guesses means Spacewalker wasn’t as loyal or noble as he claimed. And Clarke’s coolness towards the guy now (and his own belief that Clarke isn’t really that sort of girl) means she hadn’t known.

It all just confirms his own opinion of Finn, but for some reason both girls still seemed to give the guy at least some of the time of day.

So he feels a little bad when he has to look Raven in the eyes right now, knowing how she’s about to feel.

‘Your boyfriend’s being an idiot.’

To her credit, she doesn’t blink, just reaches back on the table to grab a case of bullets that she pushes into his chest.

‘And I’m coming with you,’ she declares.

_He’s not stopping me._

‘We should get Clarke,’ Jasper pipes in, and he actively doesn’t wince, but his silence must be enough. Raven sighs, staring back at him with her own odd eyes shining.

‘Clarke’s with Finn, isn’t she?’ she says, not really a question, more resigned than anything.

He can’t deal with this shit. He exits the tent in answer, waiting for them to follow.

Clarke’s last mental message to him had been that they were heading north-west, and as he herds Raven and Jasper out after them after a quick check-in with the gunners, he can feel her flickering on his periphery.

Maybe he can sense her easier now because she wants him to. Or maybe it’s because he actually knows her now. 

And likes her.

She’s still dropping the nuts though, and he picks them up as he follows her presence further into the forest because he at least has to explain to Raven and Jasper how he’s tracking them.

Eventually they’re led to a thick forest at the edge of the river, and instead of following Clarke up to the bridge, they head down below to the bank, lurking in the shrubs.

He peers up to the bridge, and sees Clarke and Finn there, and another figure who’s--

Octavia.

Clarke glances down surreptitiously, finding his gaze.

_Good. You’re here._

A pause.

_I swear I didn’t know about your sister._

He swallows, but believes her, and not just because he can tell lies from truth.

A figure appears on the other side of the bridge, jogging towards the group. It’s the grounder, looking less bloody and angry, his eyes set on something in front of him.

That something turns out to be someone. Bellamy watches with a sick feeling in his stomach as the grounder picks up and _twirls_ his sister. And there’s a smile on Octavia’s face.

‘I guess we know how he got away,’ Raven says, a little smirk in her voice, but Bellamy’s not smiling.

Fuck. He knew his sister had been the one to let the grounder go, but he didn’t realise it was to…do whatever this was. Anger roils in his stomach. He’d strung up Atom for _kissing_ Octavia. He wants to do a lot worse to the grounder, even as Clarke risks another glance at him.

_Please don’t shoot him before we get a chance to truce._

He swallows hard, his eye to his rifle, but doesn’t move to squeeze the trigger. Just clutches his gun with white knuckles, vowing that if the grounder so much as _moved_ to hurt any of them, he’d be paying for it.

*

When Clarke sees Octavia on the bridge, her heart sinks. This was how they’d set it up. Why didn’t it surprise her that she’d been sneaking off to see the grounder?

‘You helped him escape, didn’t you?’

‘I trust him, Clarke,’ Octavia says, determined. 

‘Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around,’ Clarke mutters.

She glances down to where she hopes she’s directed Bellamy, and feels relief when she sees the outline of three figures, including the red of Raven’s jacket. They’d better have guns.

After sending a brief yet firm message to Bellamy that she certainly had _not_ known that his sister was involved, the reason that Octavia _is_ here appears from the end of the bridge, running to her and spinning her around.

He looks different, not covered in blood and strung up, his eyes soft as he gazes at Octavia. Still, Clarke takes a step back from him, while simultaneously warning Bellamy not to ruin their shot at peace, even if he’s probably losing his head right now at seeing his little sister cuddled up to the grounder.

Then the grounder glances up to meet her eyes. The almost black and dark green. Clarke hesitates, and Finn grabs her hand. It’s probably to comfort her, but she winces internally, because Raven’s probably watching.

Still, she can’t bring herself to pull it away. Not when she’s facing a man that she witnessed being tortured.

But before she can say anything, footsteps sound in the distance, from beyond the bridge. 

Not footsteps. Hoofbeats.

‘Oh my god,’ Clarke can’t help but marvel, as three mounted figures emerge. ‘Horses!’ 

Two of the grounders are clad in terrifying armour, but one is bare-faced, apart from dark menacing kohl around her eyes.

‘Hey,’ Finn exclaims, running forward and pulling her with him. ‘We said no weapons!’

She feels bad for a second that she hadn’t noticed. They do indeed have knives strapped to them, and what looks like a sword on the leader’s back.

‘I was told there wouldn’t be,’ comes a rumbling voice, that Clarke realises is from the grounder.

What had Finn called him? Lincoln? Like the old Earth President?

But she can’t dwell on hearing the perfect English from the mouth of the grounder. She guesses she wouldn’t be here if they couldn’t somehow communicate.

‘It’s too late now,’ she tells the others. She doesn’t tell them the only reason she’s confident is because she was smart enough to bring back up. 

A fair shot indeed.

She exchanges a nervous look with Finn, and sends another mental message to Bellamy.

 _They have weapons. But I’m going anyway_ . _They don’t know about you._

He’s probably biting back from yelling a furious retort, but he can’t do that without giving up their advantage.

They start forwards, but the grounder stops Finn with a giant hand.

‘She goes alone.’

She swallows thickly, and Finn looks hesitant, but she nods at him. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s time to do better.’

And she walks towards the middle of the bridge.

Her opposite number dismounts and does the same, striding towards her with a dangerous confidence that hitches Clarke’s breath. But she’s here now. It’s time to see this through.

When they’re a couple of feet away from each other, the grounder leader stops, surveying her. Her eyes run up and down Clarke, cataloguing. And she’s not sure if it’s her imagination, but the woman lingers on Clarke’s left, silver eye.

‘Your name is Clarke?’

Clarke takes a breath, but nods, stoic.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Anya.’ Her eyes flicker up and down again. ‘You’re a _greisling_.’

Clarke blinks. A what?

If Anya cares that Clarke’s confused, she doesn’t show it, just stares. So Clarke, tentative, holds out a hand. Immediately she thinks it might be a bad idea. What if that particular tradition never survived the bombs?

She’s proven right when Anya just eyes her hand, a little like she’s disgusted, and Clarke curls it back in. Apparently, it’s up to her to say something first.

‘I think we got off to a rough start,’ she begins. ‘But we want to find a way to live together. In peace.’

The grounder’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘I understand. You started a war that you don’t know how to end.’

Clarke blinks again. ‘What? No. We didn’t start anything.’ Jasper had been hit first, and then the others. ‘You attacked us for no reason,’ she tries, but she knows it’s a little too combative when Anya snarls.

‘No reason? The missiles you launched burned a village to the ground, _greisling_.’

Whatever name Anya is calling her, it doesn’t sound complimentary. The word is said with an accent and a tone of disgust.

Clarke’s eyes widen. ‘The flares? No, that was a signal meant for our families, we didn’t know they’d landed on--’

‘You’re invaders,’ Anya interrupts. ‘Your ship landed in our territory.’

Clarke scrambles to explain. ‘We didn’t know anyone was here. We were sent against our will, and they thought the ground was uninhabited.’

‘You knew we were here when you sent an armed raiding party to capture one of us and torture him,’ the grounder’s voice rises dangerously, and Clarke winces.

It was all so fucked. None of this was meant to happen, and it sounded like there was pretty severe miscommunication, on both sides. It didn’t mean Anya wasn’t right though.

‘These are all acts of war,’ Anya spits.

Clarke sighs inwardly, drawing in another deep breath. Be diplomatic, she reminds herself.

‘I see your point,’ she starts, and Anya looks surprised that she concedes. It doesn’t bode well, because if people weren’t normally reasonable down here, how the hell were they supposed to get peace? 

‘That’s why we need to put an end to all this.’

Anya narrows her eyes, but she does at least look a little appeased. She crosses her arms.

‘Lincoln said there are more of you coming down. Warriors.’

‘The guard, yes,’ Clarke admits. ‘But also farmers, doctors, engineers. We can help each other. But not if we’re at war.’

Anya raises her chin. ‘Can you promise that these new arrivals won’t attack us? That they’ll honour the terms that you and I set?’

Clarke swallows. She can’t, not really. They’re _kids_. Delinquents. The odds of Jaha or the leadership of the Ark listening to her after hostilities have already been exchanged...it’ll be a difficult case to convince them.

‘I promise that I will do everything I can to convince them.’

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Clarke knows it as soon as Anya’s mouth twists.

‘Why would I agree to an alliance that your people can break the moment they get here,’ the grounder demands, and Clarke winces.

‘We were prisoners, we don’t have much sway--’

‘You’re their representative right now, _greisling,_ ’ Anya counters. ‘How am I supposed to refuse to attack an enemy who won’t give us a truce?’

‘If you fire the first shot,’ Clarke says, impatient. ‘The people coming down won’t bother negotiating.’ Anya looks skeptical, as if she doesn’t care, and Clarke decides it’s time to play the card of strength. ‘Our technology? They _will_ wipe you out. And I don’t want that.’

The grounder’s face turns to stone. ‘Wipe us out? They wouldn’t be the first to try.’

Clarke’s eyes narrow. So there was more than one set of people on the ground?

But before she can question the statement, there’s a shout from behind her. _Below her._

‘Clarke, run!’ It’s Jasper, and he starts shooting into the trees, much to Clarke’s alarm. But _people_ fall out, people with long-range weapons. They’d come with their own backup.

There’s the sound of a knife being drawn, and Clarke registers the blade in Anya’s hand, slicing towards her. But just before she can lunge, Anya reels back, shot, and Clarke spins, spotting Bellamy down below, gun smoking.

 _Thanks_ , she manages to think to him before she dives to the ground to avoid incoming arrows.

Finn rushes to grab her and Clarke wants to yell at him for being stupid, but they manage to sprint for the end of the bridge, dodging arrows whizzing past them.

‘Run!’ Lincoln is yelling as they fly past him, his eyes blazing. ‘Take her, get behind your walls.’ Clarke wrestles Octavia away, knowing Bellamy would never forgive her if she left his sister behind. 

And they keep running, and a pain blooms in Clarke’s chest. Not from an injury, maybe from the running, but certainly from the knowledge she’s _failed_.

There was no way they were getting peace now.

*

Bellamy watches Clarke and the grounder leader on the bridge carefully. He can’t help but flicker his eyes back to Octavia and the huge, hulking, odd-eyed grounder, though, anger coursing through him as he realises they’re _holding hands_.

But Clarke’s the one talking to the overtly hostile grounder. The leader looks to be a woman, honey coloured hair and black markings around her eyes. 

He taps his foot, nervous. As much as he doesn’t think this will work, Clarke’s up there now, _negotiating_. She’d told him not to move when they’d realised they’d brought weapons. He guesses she’s not so panicked because she knows she has back-up.

Him.

Beside him, Raven raises her own scope to watch the meeting closer.

‘Grounder Princess looks pissed,’ she comments, and he has to snort.

‘Our Princess has that effect,’ he says, remembering how little he got along with Clarke when they’d first met. Sure she’d been competent, but she’d been a pain in his ass. He doesn’t doubt that’s how the grounder leader is feeling now, loath as he is to sympathise.

A few more tense minutes go by. He’s unsure whether it’s good or bad that it’s taking so long. Maybe they’re already working out terms. But maybe the grounder is telling Clarke all the ways her people will spear them to death.

‘Oh no,’ Jasper says suddenly, from beside him. ‘This is bad.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Jasper’s scope whips back and forth, pointed up at the trees.

‘There’s grounders up there. Armed,’ Jasper whispers.

Bellamy blinks. He hadn’t sensed any. He quickly looks through his own scope, seeing nothing. But that didn’t mean anything. He closes his eyes, willing his perception to spread out further.

And...there.

Jasper was right. There were people in the trees.

But before Bellamy can say anything else, Jasper is flying out into the open, yelling a warning and spraying bullets into the canopy.

Fuck. He immediately swings his scope back to Clarke, and there. The leader’s hand flashes into her belt, and Bellamy’s letting off a shot before he can think, praying his senses give him good enough aim in this moment.

It pays off. The grounder reels back and Clarke whirls, catching his eye.

 _Thanks_.

There’s no time to answer it, even with a smile, not that he’s in the mood for that right now. He grabs Jasper by the scruff and hauls him back into the trees, urging him and Raven to _run._

Somehow they join back up with the others as they all sprint their way back to camp, not stopping even once.

There’s no time for conversation, except for some choice thoughts.

 _Thank god he was there_ , Clarke is thinking, but it’s the only positive one from the group on the bridge.

_Why the fuck were you there, Bellamy?!_

That one’s Octavia.

Finally they arrive back outside the walls, all of them panting with exertion. It’s silent, until Bellamy spots Finn glaring, along with some not so nice (if not direct) thoughts about him.

‘Got something to say?’ Bellamy challenges.

‘Yeah! I told you no guns!’ he yells at Clarke, but she isn’t having it.

‘And I told you we couldn’t trust the grounders, I was right!’

‘And why didn’t you tell me what you were up to?’ Raven demands.

‘I tried, but you were too busy making bullets for your gun!’ He says the last word like it’s dirty, and Bellamy can’t help but butt in.

‘You’re lucky she brought that. They came there to kill you, Finn.’

‘You don’t know that!’ Finn explodes. ‘Jasper fired the first shot!’

_Dangerous fucking out of control maniac._

‘You ruined everything,’ Octavia says poisonously. She’s staring at Jasper, but she’s thinking it to Bellamy too.

He runs a hand over his face. He already has a headache thinking about what’s going to happen next.

‘Well if we weren’t at war already, we sure as hell are now,’ Finn spits, and Clarke rolls her eyes, but he can tell she’s more upset than she’s letting on. ‘You didn’t have to trust the grounders,’ he says. ‘You just had to trust me.’

Clarke’s silent, and he only gets the tail-end of a thought, although he can guess the start.

_Not like I can trust Bellamy._

Finn shakes his head and walks back into camp, Raven following with a regretful look. They’re left alone, and Clarke grimaces.

_Well that got fucked up._

‘Like I said,’ he sighs. ‘Best Unity Day ever.’

Clarke looks like she’s about to cry, and he sort of regrets his words, when a loud noise, a crack, comes from up in the sky. Up in the stars.

A light is falling, swiftly from where the Ark is supposed to be hanging in the sky.

‘The Exodus Ship,’ he wonders aloud. ‘Your mom’s early.’

Clarke gasps a smile, craning her neck up to watch it with him. They follow it as it streaks down from the stars. 

But it doesn’t slow.

‘Wait,’ Clarke suddenly says. ‘Too fast. No parachute? Something’s wrong.’

He watches with wide eyes as she’s proven right. It dips below the mountain line, still at the same speed. A light fills the sky, and then another boom, the fire of an explosion in the distance, a mushroom cloud of smoke blooming up from beyond the mountains.

There’s no surviving that.

Clarke collapses in front of him, shaking. He doesn’t know what to do.

Her _mom_ was on that ship.

He kneels down slowly next to her as she stares, unblinking, at the horizon where plumes of smoke are still rising.

‘ _Mom_ ,’ she whispers.

‘Clarke,’ he starts, but he has no idea what to say. She seems to be frozen, not even registering that he’s still there with her. ‘Clarke,’ he tries again, and this time she hears him, turning to him with her eyes unfocused.

‘They’re both dead.’

He immediately understands. Her father and her mother. He bites back on saying something like ‘welcome to the club’. She doesn’t need to hear him be an asshole right now.

‘Come on, Clarke,’ he whispers, and is relieved when she doesn’t resist as he pulls her to her feet. They stagger into the camp, where there’s a lot of whispering and panic, and Fox runs up to him.

‘That was the Exodus Ship, wasn’t it?’

‘That was our back-up!’ someone else shouts.

‘Clear a path,’ he grumbles at them, and they seem to realise Clarke’s state then. ‘Her mom…’

Fox’s eyes grow wide. ‘Oh shit.’ She helps lead him to Clarke’s tent, and bites her lip as she hovers outside. ‘It _was_ the Exodus Ship.’

‘I think so,’ says Bellamy, and she scampers off. 

He gets Clarke settled down on her bed. She seems more lucid now, but she’s quiet, staring at her shoes as if only contemplating unbuckling them.

‘Clarke…’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ she says, raw.

He keeps silent.

She swallows. ‘I was mad at her. I refused to talk to her, last time she was on the radio. I never forgave…’

Bellamy sits down on the bed with her. He knows there are no words to comfort her right now.

How fucked that they started off the night before smiling and flirting, and it’s all ended with being shot at and a ship exploding.

Clarke takes a deep breath, and he watches her intently. Her red eyes seem to dim a little, and the shock and upset withdraws from her face. It’s like he’s seeing her walls physically be built, an icy cage she’s using to lock down her emotions.

‘You’re allowed to mourn--’ he tries to say, but she clenches her jaw.

_Don’t tell me what I’m allowed to do, Bellamy._

He swallows, but she deflates, and there’s another long pause.

‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,’ she finally says, voice small.

Bellamy places a hand on her shoulder, knowing she’ll shake him off if she doesn’t want it there. But she just sinks further down onto the makeshift bed. ‘You cry, and you rage, and then we keep fighting,’ he says to her, and she glances up at him.

‘Is that what you did?’

He pauses. ‘In a way.’

She doesn’t smile, but it’s not like he expects her to. Clarke just nods to herself, and pulls off her boots and stows her pack, scooting back onto the bed.

He catches her eye as she’s stoically pulling up one of the orange blankets. ‘I’m sorry.’

Clarke barely blinks. ‘Yeah. Me too.’

‘It will get easier,’ he says, and she tenses. 

‘I want to go see it tomorrow.’ Her tone leaves no room for him to argue. It’s not a request, it’s a statement.

So he nods. It’ll be dangerous right now, what with the grounders out for blood, but he can’t deny her this.

‘It’s done.’

He moves to leave, getting to the opening of the tent when she calls his name.

‘Bellamy?’

‘Yeah?’

 _Thanks_.

From the images surrounding that one word, he knows it’s not for just right now. It’s for agreeing to back her up, for bringing guns, for shooting Anya just at the right moment. For proving her trust.

He nods again, just small, just for her.

‘Any time.’

***

"now, **I am become Death** , the destroyer of worlds."

— j. robert oppenheimer

  
  


It’s all rubble.

Rubble and smoke and ash and twisted metal and bones. 

So many bones.

Clarke steps carefully around each mangled pile of debris. The Exodus Ship hadn’t been huge, but it had certainly left an impact. She has no idea what speed it was hitting when it met the ground, but it wasn’t slow. They all would have perished on impact.

She catalogues every body part she sees, trying to discern some sort of recognisable quality, but it’s useless. Any one of the charred skeletons or bloody, dismembered limbs could belong to her mother.

It doesn’t make her cry. It just makes her numb.

Still, she’s glad Bellamy had agreed so easily to a mission out here, not even blinking at her request. And Raven said if she could find the black box, she could find out what exactly went wrong. How, exactly, her mother died.

When was she going to escape the deaths that kept coming? No matter how hard she tried to save everyone, it ended with skeletons and bloodshed.

If she looks for one more second at one of the possibly-her-mother bodies, she’s going to be sick, so Clarke wanders over to a bigger piece of machinery. It’s got a pipe of some sort, leaking a red liquid that’s not blood.

‘Clarke, stop!’

She glances up to see Raven running frantically towards her, eyes wide at the sight of the pungent liquid.

‘Rocket fuel?’ she asks.

‘Hydrazine,’ Raven confirms (at least, she thinks it’s a confirmation). ‘Highly unstable in its non-solid form. If this stuff meets fire,’ she bends down, dipping a rock ever so slightly into a puddle of the stuff. ‘We’re all pink mist.’

She straightens, and her dark blue eye gleams as she shouts ‘Fire in the hole!’ and lobs the rock quite accurately into a still burning piece of the ship. 

_Boom._

Clarke steps back instinctively, but Raven just nods. ‘We need to clear the area,’ she adds to Bellamy, and he’s quick in mobilising the other kids into a formation so they can head back home.

She takes one last look at the crash site before they leave, swallowing down the urge to cry. She can’t afford to break down now, not when everything depends on her running the camp with Bellamy, and building up protection for the inevitable grounder retaliation.

Finn tries to catch up to her on their way back, but she can’t really face the pity puppy dog eyes right now. Everyone has been looking at her like that this morning, except for Raven and Bellamy. The latter was even _there_ for her initial meltdown, but isn’t looking at her like she’s going to break. It’s something she can appreciate.

He falls into step with her just a minute later, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, still clutching his rifle to his front. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t ask if you’re alright then?’

Clarke huffs. ‘Anyone else ever tell you you have a warped sense of humour?’

‘All the time,’ Bellamy replies. ‘Although Octavia never called it humour.’

She has to smile, just a little. She’s not sure if he’s trying to cheer her up somehow or if he’s just that secretly dorky, but whatever it is, it’s working.

He nudges her shoulder. ‘We’ll figure out what happened, alright? We’ll keep trying the Ark. But for now…’

‘We have to focus on the grounders, yes I know.’ Clarke bites her lip. ‘Do you really think we have a chance?’

‘We do have guns,’ Bellamy says. ‘But we have shitty ammo, and our soldiers are kids.’ He sighs. ‘We won’t make it at all if we don’t fight, though. So that’s what we’re gonna do.’

She nods, and they walk in peaceful silence for the rest of the trek home. If Bellamy realises she doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t say so, but his presence by her side does dissuade anyone else from saying anything to her, so it’s an overall win.

They get back through the walls, but they’re greeted by an anxious-looking Miller.

‘What is it?’

Miller sighs, glancing at Bellamy like he knows his next words won’t be well-received. 

‘Murphy’s back.’

And Bellamy’s off like a shot, heading into the Dropship. Clarke follows close behind.

 _Don’t be rash,_ she reminds him. _We’re making decisions together._

The only sign of his hearing is a more obvious tension to his shoulders. They storm in past the hanging red drapes and Bellamy almost growls.

‘Where is he?’

The crowd parts to reveal the hunched figure of Murphy. He’s thin, curled almost into a foetal position, and he’s covered head-to-toe in blood and bruises.

What the fuck happened to him?

Bellamy orders everyone out as Connor and Derek fill them in. Apparently he’s been with the grounders, and they found him sneaking back into camp.

‘I wasn’t sneaking,’ Murphy edges out, like it’s painful to even talk. ‘I was running from the grounders.’

‘Anyone _see_ grounders?’

_Is he lying?_

Bellamy tilts his head to the side, which Clarke reads as _kind of_. But she also gets the strong impression that he doesn’t care. When there’s silence from the entourage left in the ship, he lifts his rifle with terrifying intent.

‘Well in that case--’

‘What the hell is wrong with you?!’ Finn attempts to wrestle the gun out of Bellamy’s hands, but Clarke already knows who’s winning that particular fight.

‘We were clear what would happen if we came back,’ Bellamy thunders. They keep arguing, but Clarke’s distracted with Murphy.

He shudders at every sudden movement, every time someone even gestures towards him. He flinches at the loud voices, and his injuries…

‘We hanged him, we banished him, and now we’re gonna kill him,’ Bellamy is spitting at Finn. ‘Get the hell out of my way.’

‘No,’ Clarke finds herself saying. ‘Finn is right.’ She ducks in front of the boys to kneel down next to Murphy. He doesn’t quite flinch, but closes his eyes.

‘Like hell he is,’ Bellamy says angrily. ‘Clarke, think about Charlotte--’

‘I am thinking about her,’ Clarke retorts, turning her head to meet his blazing glare. Silver meeting gold, she can’t help but think. ‘But what happened to Charlotte was as much our fault as his.’

_You told her to slay her demons. I set off the riot. Murphy did worse, but we’re not innocent._

She doesn’t wait for his response to that, although she’s sure he has a silent one. Instead, she examines Murphy’s injuries, taking his shaking, bloody hands in her own.

‘He’s not lying,’ she says. _At least not fully. He can’t have done this to himself_ , she adds to Bellamy. ‘His fingernails were torn off.’ She slowly looks up to meet Murphy’s gaze this time, and the pain in them tells her she’s right. ‘They tortured him.’

‘You and the grounders should compare notes,’ she hears Finn snark to Bellamy behind her. She refrains from rolling her eyes.

‘The grounders know we’re at war,’ Bellamy points out, ignoring Finn. ‘What did you tell them about us?’ he adds to Murphy, furiously.

Murphy shudders, swallowing heavily, and Clarke realises what he’s about to say before he does. 

‘Everything.’

She can almost feel the heat radiating off Bellamy behind her, the extra layer of tension in the room now they’ve all realised what this means. But the Murphy in front of her is still weak and bleeding. He won’t withstand much of a questioning in this state.

Clarke climbs to her feet and meets Bellamy’s eyes, staring him down. They’re co-leaders. They both make the decisions, and she’s the healer, so she’s confirming this one. ‘Once he’s better, we find out what he knows, and then he’s out of here, okay?’

She should have known it wouldn’t placate Bellamy, not in the fury he’s in. As she slips past him, his voice catches her.

‘What if he refuses to leave? What do we do with him then?’

Clarke looks down at the pathetic figure on the floor, and a flash of Charlotte’s face appears to her, that terrible night on the ridge. And her resolve from then builds back up into a determined stare, that she now directs at Bellamy.

‘Then we kill him.’

_And I’ll do it myself, if I have to._

She leaves before he can protest, heading directly to the comms tent, wondering if she can once again just _try_ and contact the Ark. Ask them what the hell happened.

Of course, Raven is already there, and Clarke tries to awkwardly excuse herself but Raven waves it away, like she’s always doing these days. It makes her feel terribly guilty, even if she knows herself it’s Finn that keeps pushing closeness on them.

But then Raven looks her in the eye and tells her she’s sorry about her mom. Clarke doesn’t know quite how to respond. She doesn’t want sympathy, but she does know Raven met and worked with her mother, and she feels her eyes become wet.

Of course, it’s not tears that slide down her face. It’s blood.

Then Connor is calling her name, coughing up his own blood. And Derek, sitting around with his friends across the way, starts to hack and spew red-laced vomit into his hands.

A dread sinks into Clarke’s shoulders.

‘Raven, get away from us.’

‘What?’

‘They’re the ones who brought Murphy in.’

There’s something very, very wrong.

*

Bellamy flings another knife into the tree, trying to let his anger at Murphy’s return out. It boils his blood, the way the slimy bastard had looked up at him, trying to elicit his pity.

He knows better.

There’s something about Murphy’s intentions that aren’t right. Bellamy can’t put his finger on it yet, because he wasn’t altogether lying about the grounders, and Clarke believed him as soon as she saw his nails. But he’s always been like this, Murphy has. Hard to read, even for Bellamy. He’s like Bellamy’s mother, easily hiding his thoughts away. Sometimes it even worried him that Murphy might have guessed what his true abilities were.

He’s about to throw another knife when Miller yells his name.

‘What?’

‘Clarke just ran into the Dropship with blood pouring down her face, and apparently Connor and Derek were coughing up blood too.’

‘ _What?’_

He races to the Dropship, clutching his gun close. He swears to god, if Murphy has done something…

‘Bellamy, stay back,’ Clarke pleads, putting a hand out to signal him to not come any closer. She’s knelt before Murphy, and there’s stains of blood running from her _eyes_.

‘Did he do something to you?’ he has to ask, voice low, and she shakes her head, very slowly.

 _Not on purpose. He was let go. The grounders_ let him go _, Bellamy._

‘What the hell is this?’

She turns to look at Murphy, who’s heaving behind her. Then back to him, her silver and blue eyes meeting his gaze. A chill runs down his spine at her words.

‘Biological warfare.’

_You were waiting for retaliation from the bridge? This is it. Murphy. He’s the weapon._

_Well if he didn’t hate me before_ , is Murphy’s only thought, and Bellamy stares at the boy he banished, blood still covering his face, one eye swollen shut.

He’s doomed them all.

‘Is this your revenge?’ He has to ask, injecting poison into his voice. ‘Telling the grounders about us--’

‘I didn’t know about this, I swear.’ But an image flies Bellamy’s way, of something the grounders had smeared him with the night before he left. Something he’s never going to tell Bellamy.

‘Stop lying!’ He explodes, but Murphy, on the outside, just groans. Clarke is wiping at his wounds for some reason, like it’s going to matter once they kick him out again.

Clarke tries to question him, voice soft as if she’s the good cop to his bad. Maybe that’s just how their dynamic is, Bellamy thinks sourly. Of course the Princess gets to be the angel.

He’s annoyed at her, for not letting him kill Murphy before. Maybe if he had, none of this would have happened.

‘They are vicious, cruel--’ Murphy stutters, and Bellamy scoffs.

‘You wanna see vicious?’ He starts towards him, but Clarke turns back to him, holding out a hand again.

_Stop. Don’t._

‘Whatever this thing is, it spreads through contact. You can’t risk coming near anyone who’s infected.’

He’s about to reply when Finn appears from behind him.

‘Clarke?!’

‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ Clarke tells the other boy furiously. ‘No one should.’

 _Especially you,_ she adds to Bellamy silently. _I need you to keep running the camp._

‘I heard you were sick,’ Finn says breathlessly, and Clarke looks away from both of them.

‘It’s some kind of hemorrhagic fever. Bleeding from the eyes and noses, filling our lungs, causing coughing. Weakness, faintness.’ She lists the symptoms like a doctor, and Bellamy realises that’s what her mother would have done.

‘We just need to contain it,’ Clarke says weakly. ‘Before--’

Of course, that’s when Derek starts to cough violently behind them, causing Clarke’s eyes to widen in panic. Bellamy steps away to let her through, but Finn is more of an idiot.

‘Don’t touch me, you’ll get sick,’ she hisses. ‘Wash your hands.’ 

Derek continues to seize up, and Clarke hovers above, seemingly lost on what to do. And then Derek stills.

Bellamy can’t sense the heartbeat anymore, when he reaches his perception out. He freezes. Clarke kneels down and checks the pulse herself, and rocks back slowly on her heels when she’s done. He knows the answer before she says it.

‘He’s dead.’

There’s dread in her face, and dread in Bellamy’s heart. This wasn’t just a sickness. It was going to kill them all.

‘What do we do?’ Finn asks fearfully, alcohol dripping from his hands.

Clarke glances at him, pausing. ‘Quarantine,’ she finally says. ‘Round up everyone who’s had contact with Murphy.’

Finn leaves quickly, to Bellamy’s relief, and he eyes Clarke. ‘And everyone they had contact with?’

_We have to start somewhere._

She turns to Connor in the corner, also looking sick as a dog, blood staining his eyes and hands. Bellamy had almost forgotten he was in here, but the boy is staring at Derek with wide, scared eyes.

‘Connor, who was with you when you found Murphy? Think!’

Connor glances at him.

 _He’s not going to like this_.

‘The first one there was Octavia,’ he utters, and Bellamy’s world shatters, just for a moment.

Until he hears one voice. Not hears. Senses.

_Bellamy. Bellamy, listen. Go and find her, make sure she’s alright. I’ll do my best to make sure we get out of this, okay? I promise._

He startles out of his haze to see Clarke staring at him, and he shakes himself, physically and mentally.

 _Go. Don’t worry about me_.

So he does. He concentrates, spreading his senses across camp to find his sister, and races towards the tent she’s in, ripping open the flap.

 _‘_ Fuck, you scared me.’

Octavia’s lying stomach-down across her blankets, shoving away the grounder’s book and she doesn’t _look_ weak. Still, he can’t help the worry in his voice.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ she says, dismissive. ‘Get out.’ It’s a painful reminder of old Octavia, the one who’d get mildly annoyed at him back at their apartment, the usual sibling irritation.

But he doesn’t have time for it right now. ‘Did you touch Murphy yesterday?’

She looks at him like he’s grown another head. ‘I don’t know. I guess so. Why?’

‘The grounders sent him here with a virus to infect us,’ he tells her, and gets a tiny amount of satisfaction from the way her expression morphs from annoyance to shock. ‘Derek just died from it. Another mark for your boyfriend’s book,’ he adds.

_He saw it._

‘Yeah, I saw it. Come on, get up. Clarke needs to examine you.’

_He thinks I have it._

‘For god’s sake, O, I know we’re not getting along at the moment, but I can’t let you bleed to death from this. Trust me, it’s not pretty.’

To her credit, she just nods and follows him back to the Dropship, her mind flickering to him every now and then.

Her eyes widen as she takes in the Dropship. Bellamy sees that Finn’s rounded up as many people as he can, and it doesn’t look good. Just minutes ago, it was only Clarke, Murphy, and Connor who had the disease. Already, there’s a dozen more kids with blood-stained mouths.

_Oh good, he’s here with Octavia._

Clarke strides towards him, but keeps her distance, leaning against the metal ladder, and Bellamy realises it’s because she’s _weak_. She can barely stand on her own, let alone heal everyone else in here.

 _Hold a cloth to your mouth, just in case_ , Clarke thinks to him, and then she’s getting out a torch to examine Octavia, eyes squinting as she does it from a few feet away.

‘Okay,’ Clarke finally sighs, eyes flickering to him. ‘We’re done. No visible signs of swelling or bleeding.’

‘So she doesn’t have it?’ Bellamy asks hopefully, and Clarke grimaces.

‘I’m saying she doesn’t have symptoms. That could change, so she needs to stay here.’

Bellamy’s already shaking his head. ‘No way, she’ll get sick just being here.’ All around are people groaning or passed out on thread-bare cots, coughing up blood. It’s a nightmare.

_Do you want to stop the spread or not?_

He downcasts his eyes, and Octavia frowns.

_Are they communicating?_

‘I’ll keep her on the third floor with the people who aren’t symptomatic,’ Clarke says out loud, eyes serious on his. ‘Think of it as a way to stop her sneaking out again.’

Octavia forgets her suspicions and whips her head back to the blonde.

‘Screw you, Clarke.’

Bellamy stares at her for a second, but her odd eyes are steady on his, and eventually he sighs, giving a tiny nod. Clarke nods back. ‘I’ll let you know if her condition changes.’

 _Now leave before you get sick too,_ she scolds, and he relents, leaving the Dropship before one of the sick kids coughs on him.

His sister, his responsibility. If she died from getting this illness, there’d be hell to pay. But for now he focuses on what Clarke can’t -- running the camp, and preparing for the worst.

*

The world is woozy and red-tinged, but Clarke doesn’t let it stop her from doing what she needs to. She can barely balance on her feet, feeling tired like she never has before, but she manages to check Octavia over without keeling over.

She feels terrible, lying to Bellamy. It’s a difficult manoeuvre, not thinking of her plan to send Octavia out to Lincoln, but she manages it, if Bellamy’s acquiescence is anything to go by. It makes her feel slimy though, even though that doesn’t quite make sense. Bellamy doesn’t _deserve_ to know her thoughts. But he trusts her with the knowledge of his gifts, and she’s throwing that back in his face, along with sending his sister out to talk to Lincoln, arguably the last thing he’d want to happen.

But it’s what she has to do, for all of them to survive this.

After Octavia has snuck away, Clarke delivers more water to the newly sick, rolls the ones that are coughing up blood onto their sides so they don’t choke to death.

She can’t save them all, though. A girl of fourteen dies in her arms, the blood filling up her eyes as she passes. Another boy she knows, Patrick, newly eighteen, who she’s always thought was kind of annoying, starts coughing and doesn’t stop, the hacking jolts only ceasing when a last clot of blood erupts and he lays still, not breathing. 

The few sick people with strength left drag their bodies out, and Clarke follows them out with a numb heart. The constant count of a hundred names in her head is dwindling.

‘Alright,’ Bellamy says to the crowd of not-yet-sick delinquents, who are watching the bodies be laid down with wide, scared eyes. ‘Show’s over. Get back to your posts.’

They do so reluctantly, probably only because it’s Bellamy’s authoritative tone giving the orders. He veers over to her, staying a good distance away, but eyeing her with concern nonetheless.

‘Enough food in there? Water?’

She gives him a small nod. ‘Yeah.’

 _Some medicine might be nice,_ she adds to him, and it cheers her up just a little bit to see his surprised grin.

‘I’ll see what I can do, Princess,’ he smirks, and she rolls her eyes, fond. She _is_ lucky to have him running things out there, while she’s stuck in here. Her legs might feel shaky, but the camp doesn’t, not yet.

She’s heading back in when he calls out for Octavia, and her heart sinks. There’s a silence, with no response, because of course there isn’t, and immediately Bellamy’s hard eyes are on hers. She wonders if he already knows because he can’t sense her there.

 _She’s not in there_ , she eventually thinks to him, after a silent, tense stare-off, and he clenches his jaw.

‘Why?’

Clarke sighs. _I sent her to see Lincoln._

The thunder grows across his face, and she knows it’s both from anger and shock. Probably because he’s realised she managed to lie to him. She feels sick, but she still pleads with him to understand.

_If there’s a cure, he has it. Octavia’s our best chance. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you wouldn’t have let her go._

His jaw ticks, the anger in his eyes growing hotter, his gold eye in particular blazing at her. But when he speaks finally, it’s quiet.

‘If anything happens to her, you and me are gonna have problems,’ he bites, and then turns away quickly.

_Bellamy, I’m sorry. Bellamy._

But he ignores her silent pleas, storming off. And she’s about to give up and go back into the Dropship when the kid he’s shoving past turns his head, and there’s blood running down his cheeks.

‘Get to the Dropship,’ Bellamy demands. ‘Now!’

But it’s not the end of it. Fox faints, another kid coughs blood onto everyone, and suddenly it’s chaos. Guns pointed everywhere, people shouting in fear, Finn and Bellamy trying in vain to calm everyone down. But it’s not working, and if it doesn’t stop, someone would die, and not from the virus.

She shoves back through the Dropship tarp and grabs the first gun she sees, stumbles back out, and fires into the air.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

Clarke knows she must look like quite a sight. Hair dirty and bedraggled, blood staining her face, silver and blue eyes drooping in weariness, rifle pointed at the sky.

It does the job. Everyone stops and stares.

‘This is exactly what the grounders want,’ she implores. ‘They don’t have to kill us if we kill each other first--’

A stray kid starts towards her from the side, frantically pointing his own gun at her. ‘They won’t have to kill us if we all die from the disease, get back in the Dropship--!’

He’s cut off by Bellamy appearing from behind him, making short work of ramming the gun into his face and twisting it out of his hands.

_Thanks._

He locks eyes with her, and the anger from before has faded into a steady, concerned look.

‘Not to state the obvious,’ he says, low. ‘But your quarantine isn’t working.’

She’s about to reply when her vision turns wobbly, and all of her balance leaves her. She collapses into someone’s arms, and for a second she thinks it’s Bellamy, before the concerned face of Finn looks down at her. He’d been halfway across the yard.

‘I’m fine,’ she tries to say, but blackness is taking over her sight, and she can only bring herself to say a few more words. ‘Octavia will come back with a cure.’

And then she passes out.

*

Bellamy has the instinct to catch Clarke as he sees her about to collapse, but he restrains himself at the last second. It’s no use him getting sick and leaving no one to run the camp -- Clarke wouldn’t thank him for it.

Luckily, or not, Finn races over to do what he should have, hoisting Clarke up into his arms with no hesitation. Bellamy swallows. The Princess’s eyes are glazed over, her silver eye looking more of a dull grey. It’s hard to be mad at her when she could _die_.

‘Octavia will come back with a cure,’ Clarke manages, before he senses her consciousness fading. But her heart’s still beating, and he can’t panic about it because there’s another presence he knows well appearing from within the crowd.

‘There is no cure,’ announces his sister. The crowd audibly gasps, and Octavia looks small, locking eyes with him before sweeping her gaze across the rest. ‘But the grounders don’t use the sickness to kill.’

Fury rises in him once again. The audacity of her, to go meet with the grounder, the one that was inevitably going to kill them all, and come back and tell them the virus _wasn’t used to kill_. He glares at her.

‘Yeah? Tell that to them.’ He points behind him to the dead bodies wrapped in tarps. There’s been more every hour. 

Octavia’s expression falters.

_I didn’t mean it like that, Bellamy._

But he isn’t in the mood for those excuses. ‘I warned you about seeing that grounder again,’ he growls, and that’s when her expression closes over.

_Yeah? Well I have a warning for you too._

‘The grounders are coming,’ she says loudly, to everyone in the vicinity. Bellamy watches her face, but she’s telling a truth she’s not happy about. Yet she still defends ‘Lincoln’ _._ The silent one who had more reason than any other grounder to hate them. ‘And they’re attacking at first light.’

With that, Octavia’s eyes focus behind him, on Finn holding Clarke in his arms. She moves toward them, and Bellamy reaches out, catching her arm.

_Let go of me Bellamy. Now._

He does, and she doesn’t give him a second glance as she helps Finn to get Clarke into the dropship.

Bellamy wants to follow, make sure Clarke’s actually alright, but he knows there’s no point. He runs a hand over his face, turning to Raven, who’s been watching silently from the side.

‘How many bullets can you make by first light?’

She stares back at him, the dark blue eye particularly sharp on his.

_Is he serious?_

But she doesn’t voice the question out loud. She must see the answer on his face, because she nods. ‘I’m on it.’

He rounds up the gunners who aren’t sick while Raven heads into the ammo tent, collecting Jasper and Monty too. But Monroe falls sick even as they’re heading back to the tent, and all that’s left is Harper, nervous eyes landing on him. 

‘Can we do this?’

‘We have to try,’ he replies grimly.

They’re rushing out the guns, splitting the little ammo they have up between the clips. He rolls his eyes at the tension between Jasper and Monty -- seems like the Wonder Twins weren’t so friendly at the moment. Raven snaps at them before he can, and he’s a little grateful for that. At least she has the same sense of urgency he has.

That’s when Finn bursts through the tent.

‘It won’t matter if we have guns if we have no one left who can shoot,’ he says, looking directly at Raven, and there’s a moment between them that Bellamy recognises as closeness. They can read each other. ‘What do we need to build a bomb?’

It’s a strange word to hear from Pacifist Spacewalker, but he looks serious, and Raven stares back at him. The whole tent is silent.

‘Depends on what you’re trying to blow up.’

‘How about a bridge?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Bellamy asks, but it seems like the cogs are already turning behind Raven’s eyes.

‘Murphy said he crossed a bridge on the way here. Sound familiar?’

_The bridge where he fucked up our peace talks._

Bellamy grits his teeth. ‘Yeah, so what?’

‘So the virus is fast. He’s getting better, the others will too. If we can gain enough time…’

‘We can delay the attack,’ Raven murmurs. Her eyes are glazed over, and Bellamy frowns. It’s such a far-fetched plan. They needed the gunpowder for their _guns._

‘Even if Murphy is telling the truth,’ Bellamy says to Finn. ‘That bridge has survived a nuclear war and ninety-seven years of weather.’

Raven shakes her head slowly, looking at both of them with a glint in her blue eye. ‘It won’t survive me.’ It’s in such a tone of finality and confidence that Bellamy blinks.

Somehow, he believes her.

So they do it. Raven grabs her spacesuit, “for safety”, and they make the trip back out to the Exodus Ship crash-site, faster than before, because they’re running out of time.

But the determination in Raven’s eyes hasn’t wavered. As soon as he knows it, they’re back at camp, and Raven has ushered everyone out so she can work.

He paces antsily, snapping at a few of the healthy kids to stay away from the tent. But after what seems like an age, and night falling, she finally yells out.

‘You can come in now!’

Bellamy stares at the jar of rocket fuel. It’s hard to believe that such a small amount of red liquid could cause an explosion, that according to Raven would blow up a five-storey building, if such a thing still existed.

_Is he scared? Ha, what if I scare him?_

Raven creeps up behind him, yelling ‘Boom!’

It’s one of those novelties he hasn’t been able to experience since the onset of his gift. No one can truly _startle_ him.

‘Cute,’ he rolls his eyes.

‘Relax,’ she says, and begins to explain how to make the bomb. There’s excitement in her voice. She believes it’s gonna work.

Of course, then a weird tension happens between Finn and Raven when he asks who’s going to plant it. Finn eventually volunteers, and Bellamy can’t help but give him a hard time. The Pacifist, planting a bomb.

‘You won’t pick up a gun, but blowing people up, _that_ you’re okay with?’

 _Violent asshole_.

‘We’re blowing up a bridge. There’s not going to be any people on it.’

He has to sigh. ‘Finn, we have _one_ bomb. We need to use it to take as many out as possible.’

‘They don’t know we only have one bomb,’ Finn counters, condescension lacing his voice. ‘If we did, why would we waste it on the bridge?’

Why indeed. That’s what Bellamy’s asking himself. But it’s the best plan they have for their situation now -- making themselves time.

‘I’m talking about deterrents,’ Finn continues. ‘Peace through strength.’

‘The appearance of strength, you mean,’ Raven mutters. Bellamy can’t help but think of himself. The odd-eyed, strong, violent fighter, that really just had the gift of _listening._

‘The men who built the A-bomb thought they were peacemakers too,’ Bellamy has to say. ‘How’d that work out for them?’

_Fuck. He’s got a nose-bleed._

Bellamy startles, putting a hand up to wipe away the red. Fuck.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ Raven warns, like he’s an idiot.

‘Who else can take the shot?’ Finn wonders.

_He’s the only one. Fuck._

‘I appreciate the concern,’ Bellamy mutters. ‘Make sure the bomb’s ready in ten minutes.’

He stumbles out of the tent. How does a virus like this come on so fast? One minute he was fine, the next he’s bleeding and he can barely walk, the disease ripping weariness through his frame. It’s a wonder he can keep himself vertical.

He manages to find Jasper though, waves him over to tell him he’d have to be the one to take the shot. The kid has wide eyes, but nods. 

‘Why me? You’ve got twenty shooters.’

Bellamy doesn’t say anything, but despite appearances, Jasper’s not dumb.

_He asked me because no one’s left._

‘I’m the only one not sick,’ he says aloud, and Bellamy just clenches his jaw.

‘Make the shot. Don’t miss.’

Of course, that’s when he tilts into the tent, losing all of his balance. He tries to resist the two kids bringing him into the Dropship, but he has no strength left, and he’s only just conscious enough to register his sister in there, alarm radiating from her as soon as she notices him.

‘Clear a space, lay him down!’

_Bell. Bell! No, come on, you can fight it off._

He feels the blood erupt from his lungs up into his throat, and Octavia’s hands firmly rolling him over so it spews out onto the bed instead of himself. He rolls back, barely able to breathe, the only thing keeping him awake the frantic thoughts of his sister up above him.

‘Hey, big brother,’ she whispers, trying to soothe him, wiping the blood and fever sweat from his forehead. Bellamy breathes deep, trying to get just one full inhale of air, but everything hurts, and he can _sense_ the blood inside himself, hemorrhaging, just like Clarke had said.

‘I’m scared, O,’ are the words he manages to say to his sister, and she nods, gripping one of his hands in hers.

‘I won’t let anything happen to you,’ she says. ‘I promise.’

The memory swims up into his mind’s eye, the image of her tiny baby form laying in his arms, still bloody, his finger in her mouth.

‘That’s what I said to you the day you were born.’

 _I know_ , Octavia replies to him in his mind, a soft smile on her face. _You told me that like a thousand times._

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he manages to say, and she squeezes his hand stronger.

‘Just get some rest.’ 

_I_ _won’t let this thing kill you._

And somehow, he believes her.

The sleep he gets is fitful, interrupted by bouts of coughing, the blood filling up his eyes and nose and mouth again and again. Octavia makes him drink every so often, but he’s barely aware enough to swallow, let alone thank her.

He’s not sure how long it’s been when he wakes up, shivering slightly. Probably fever, but there’s no more blood in his lungs that he can sense, and gets the feeling that the worst of it’s over for him. His mouth is dry and sore though, and he inches his way up into a sitting position to cast his eyes around the filled room. It seems like most of the people in here are in stages of recovery, like him, but there are a few kids he spots with fresh red blood dripping from the corners of their mouths.

Bellamy’s not sure if the virus has made his perception go on the fritz, but he’s startled when someone appears beside him, offering a cup of water.

It’s Murphy.

_Fuck knows why I’m helping him._

‘Get the hell away from me,’ Bellamy mutters, swiping the water away. Knowing Murphy he’s spat in it. He still can’t get a read on the guy, even less now that his senses are dulled, but there’s an undercurrent of anger towards him that makes Bellamy know he can’t trust him.

‘Bellamy, you’re sick. I’m just trying to help.’

 _And look at the thanks he gives me. Fucking dick_.

It’s not like Murphy knows he’s undermining the outward appearance of the reformed, banished killer. But Bellamy ignores him anyway.

‘When I get better, if you’re still here…’ 

_Dramatic, much?_

It’s not Murphy, but Clarke. She’s crossing over to them from the other side of the room, and dismisses Murphy with a kinder look than he deserves.

‘Hey, I got this one.’ 

Murphy leaves with a scowl, but Clarke directs an almost smile at Bellamy, offering out her own cup.

_Now please drink from this, it’d be stupid for you to recover and then die from dehyradration._

She’s looking better than before, colour returned to her face, the silver in her eye gleaming again.

‘You feeling better?’ he still has to ask.

‘Yeah,’ she says softly, wrapping up her legs in her arms, looking all the way like she’s settling in beside him for a while. ‘The worst is over.’

‘That’s good,’ he says, and it’s a nice moment, the knowledge that the disease hasn’t claimed their lives, that they won’t die in the worst way possible.

He looks around. ‘You seen Octavia?’

Clarke actually smiles. ‘She was up all night helping people.’ _You raised her right._ ‘Murphy gave her a break.’

He grimaces. ‘Don’t tell me you trust him, now.’

‘Trust him?’ Clarke shakes her head. ‘No.’

There’s a pause.

_I do believe in second chances, though._

She meets his eyes meaningfully as she thinks it, and he has to look away, not quite ready to have her read him back just now.

There’s a low reddish light creeping in under the tarp that covers the Dropship door, and he realises with dread that they don’t have _any_ time left.

‘It’s almost dawn. Better get everyone inside.’ He gives Clarke a wry look. ‘Maybe if we lock the doors, the grounders will think no one is home.’

‘Not everyone’s sick,’ Clarke protests, but he sighs.

‘Sick is better than dead.’

She eyes him.

 _You don’t think Finn and Jasper will pull it off._ There she goes, reading him again. How does he manage to be such an open book to her?

‘Do you?’ he retorts, a bit sharper than he means to, but he sees the resignation set in for her. As much as she wants to have faith in them, her logic is winning out.

‘I’ll get everyone inside.’

He refuses to let her go alone, though. If they’re doing this, they’re doing it together.

*

Bellamy insists on coming with her to round everyone up. It’s that caring instinct of his, the way he can’t help but mother everyone. The healthy delinquents are reluctant at first, but they play the good cop, bad cop routine. Bellamy barks and Clarke weedles, and eventually they’re convinced that the risk of contracting the disease is better than being impaled on spears.

They’re heading back in when the ground shakes, and they turn to see the mushroom cloud of smoke rising into the air, the rumble of the explosion echoing back to them, even from all that way away.

‘They did it,’ Bellamy says from beside her, disbelieving.

The smoke billows upward, collapsing in on itself, forming the iconic shape Clarke’s seen in her ancient textbooks dozens of times.

‘I am become Death,’ she murmurs. ‘Destroyer of worlds.’ She can feel Bellamy’s questioning eyes on her, and she frowns. She’d thought he would have known who Oppenheimer was.

‘I do know who Oppenheimer is,’ he grumbles, and she exchanges a glance with him. She can’t help but smile. She knew he was a closet history nerd.

‘Just because I know the guy who built the A-bombs doesn’t mean I’m a nerd,’ he mutters, but it’s light-hearted, and they stare a bit more at the cloud before it dissipates. Quickly, they’re getting everyone back to their stations, reasoning that it’s better to keep the quarantine in place for now, lest the grounders find a way around the bridge.

But everyone else recovers, for the most part, in the next couple of hours. No more cases, no more deaths. For that, Clarke is grateful.

Everyone filters back out to their jobs, a generally jubilant atmosphere in the air, although she knows it won’t -- can’t -- last. They’ve won a battle, but they’re in the middle of a war. 

There’s a hero’s welcome for Jasper and Monty as they return, and Clarke gives them both a smile, that Monty returns nervously yet happily.

But then there’s Finn and Raven. She hadn’t realised Raven had gone, and with a sinking feeling she realises what must have happened. She hadn’t trusted her boyfriend to go through with it. 

Raven’s leaning heavily on Finn, blood on her face, and Clarke ushers them into the Dropship, making sure she’s settled into the hammock. It won’t do to have their smartest resident die on them now, after everything they’ve been through. And Clarke’s not sure if she can face _Raven_ dying on her. Despite everything between them, she likes her. A lot.

But she’s getting stronger, and she tells a worried Finn so, ignoring his imploring looks. They’re the last thing she wants, with everything else going on.

She nods at Murphy on her way out. He’s still covered in blood, but he’s helping the remaining sick, wiping their faces before his own. She meant what she’d communicated to Bellamy. She does believe in second chances.

Clarke’s distracted, the rest of the day, cleaning up what she can, checking on the last kids to contract the virus. The usual spate of injuries don’t stop either, people still cutting themselves on their makeshift blades, twisting their ankles on wayward roots. It’s a part of life now, for them.

Some other kids volunteer to carry the bodies outside the walls, to dig the graves, and she’s glad. She’s not sure if she can handle that right now. Looking at a dirty shovel still reminds her of the last time she talked to Wells. Looking at dead bodies reminds her of the ones her mother was among, in the charred remains of the Exodus Ship.

She sneaks out there later though, after dinner, once the graves are covered over. Clarke stares at them. Their final journeys to the ground had ended here. She couldn’t save them.

‘You’re outside of the wall without a gun.’ Bellamy strides over with his own rifle at his belt, a mix of concern and annoyance on his face. The firelight bounces off his golden eye, making it look more orange and red than gold.

 _The grounders would have come by now, if they were going to,_ she thinks to him. But out loud, she voices the number that’s been ringing in her head since she counted the piles of dirt silently.

‘Fourteen graves.’

He doesn’t reply to that though. There’s something else on his mind, evidently.

‘We need to talk about Murphy.’

‘He was right about the bridge.’

Bellamy’s jaw works. ‘There’s something about him I still don’t trust. Something I’m…’

She picks up on the unsaid. Something his perception is telling him.

_He’s lying?_

He shrugs. ‘Not directly. But I don’t think he’s over what happened.’

_We’ll keep an eye on him._

Bellamy sighs, but doesn’t push it. ‘Octavia says the mountain men are pissed, whatever that means.’

Clarke worries her lip. Like she thought. Another set of grounders, different, perhaps, to the ones attacking them. Them being ‘pissed’ didn’t bode well. 

‘I’d say it means we need as many soldiers as we can get,’ she tells Bellamy. ‘Even ones we can’t totally trust.’

He grips his gun tighter, tense. ‘So what,’ he asks her. ‘We have pardon power now?’

Clarke turns to him, meeting the intense stare that he seems to reserve for her.

 _It’s hard running things_ , she thinks to him, echoing back the words he’d said to her the day after the grounder’s torture. He comforted her then, she can ease his responsibility now.

He sighs, turning back to look at the graves. It’s as much agreement as she’ll get from him right now. His eyes run over the dirt too, taking them in as she had done just before. Neither of them need to count, she knows. They have the number in their heads, constantly.

‘Fourteen,’ she still says, out loud, as she turns back inside.

 _Eighty-six alive_ , she adds to him just as she goes back through the gate.

They could both use a little bit of hope, after all.

***

“it almost feels like **the calm** before the storm.”

— cecelia ahern, _love rosie_

  
  


He notices Clarke as he’s directing the change of watch. The kids could do it themselves, really, but he knows it comforts them to have him confirm things, his directions the words of authority they can count on.

She’s up on one of the hills that surround the camp, looking out into the trees like she’s waiting for something to jump out. They’ve all been more antsy since the virus and the bridge bomb, waiting with sick stomachs for something to happen. But so far, it’s been still, eerily so.

‘Anything?’ he asks her, joining Clarke’s anxious watch. She doesn’t startle, doesn’t even flinch at his appearance, although she does turn her head and give him a quick glance over, as if she’s checking he’s okay.

But if she has any thoughts about that, she keeps them quiet.

‘No.’ She sighs. ‘It’s been two days. Maybe the bomb at the bridge scared them off for good.’

Her eyes turn back to the trees, the dappled light glancing oddly off the metallic sheen of her silver iris. They’re quite beautiful together, the blue and silver, he’s come to notice. He’s never going to tell her that though.

‘You believe that?’ he asks, disbelieving. Clarke glances at him before looking back at the sight of trees and nothing else.

Her head shakes, just miniscule. 

_No. They’re coming._

Her face is creased in worry, and it’s then Bellamy notices there are dark circles under her eyes. She hasn’t been sleeping. He has to distract her from the constant suspense, if there’s any chance of her being in good enough condition to fight.

‘Jasper thinks he can cook up some more gunpowder,’ he announces, moving from his spot and knowing she’ll follow, now that he’s given her something to be curious about. ‘And Raven says she can turn that into landmines. So be careful where you step.’

He leads her down one of the gullies, almost running into a tree when he turns to throw the grin at her, but he manages to swing around it as smooth as can be. If she notices it, it doesn’t register with him.

And it’s worth it when there’s a small huff of laughter from her.

‘Funny,’ she says in a sarcastic tone, but he knows she does think it is funny, just a little. If, with a few laughs, he can distract Clarke Griffin from drowning herself in the inevitable war, then he’ll consider at least part of his job done.

‘What I really need is a thousand more of her tin can bombs, so I can roll them into their villages and blow those grounders to hell,’ he says as they’re heading back to the camp. 

_That’s a little bloodthirsty, even for you._

He sighs. ‘That’s what they want to do to us, Clarke.’

She bites her lip, still looking troubled. ‘I can’t believe we survived a hundred years just so we could slaughter each other. There has to be another way.’

Bellamy appreciates her idealism, he does. But no matter what Finn says, peace isn’t an option with the grounders. Clarke had told him about her conversation with the leader on the bridge. The fact that they couldn’t guarantee a lack of retaliation from their people on the Ark had ruined their chances even before the exchange of fire.

‘Any word from the Ark?’

‘Radio silence,’ she shakes her head, glancing up at them.

 _They’re dead_.

‘Finally ran out of air,’ he murmurs. Clarke nods a little, and then says something he doesn’t quite expect.

‘Maybe my mom was lucky. Being on the Exodus Ship. At least it was quick.’

He doesn’t know quite what to say to that. She might be right, she might be wrong. Death by fire, or death by suffocation. It wasn’t much of a choice.

‘No one’s coming down to save us,’ she finally says, voice resigned, and he nods.

‘That’s why we’re going to save ourselves. Okay, Princess?’

She gives him the smallest of smiles, but he considers it a victory. 

‘Yeah, okay.’

They get on with leading their camp, and preparing for the worst.

*

She’s wrapping up someone’s arm in the Dropship when she hears the calls.

_‘Fire! Fire!’_

Only a second later the pungent scent of smoke is hitting her, and she rushes out, telling Pavan to stay.

It’s the meat tent, she realises with horror, as she joins the crowd surrounding it. And the fire is hot and thick. Not much would survive it. A figure stumbles out from it, and Clarke realises it’s Octavia, and Bellamy’s right there to catch her. Murphy starts punching Dal, and it’s chaos until Bellamy pulls them apart.

But it’s Octavia’s words that cut through to her. ‘Now what the hell are we gonna do? That was _all_ the food!’

The fire is consuming it. Bellamy looks at her lost. And she can’t say she has any answers.

Clarke goes back to finish up with Pavan, and then checks the stores, wincing at how little they have. It won’t last them long, not with eighty-five hungry teenagers, not when they need strength to fight off whatever grounder attack is coming.

She goes back outside to where Bellamy is crouching in the ashes, a grim expression on his face.

_Any idea what happened?_

He looks up at her as she arrives, and sighs.

‘Murphy says that Dal kept feeding the fire, mostly because Octavia told him it was a bad idea.’

She winces. ‘And we believe Murphy?’

_Was he lying?_

‘I believe him,’ he says, and she nods. 

‘We have some wild onions and nuts in the Dropship,’ she tells him. _Not the hallucinogenic ones, don’t worry._ ‘But it’s only enough to last us a week. What’s left here?’

His eyebrows, which had lifted in amusement at her silent comment about the nuts, furrow again.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘It all burned.’

It’s what she suspected, but the confirmation makes her decision.

‘Then we have to hunt.’ Disbelief crawls over his face, and she musters enough courage to add, ‘Anyone we can spare goes out,’ before she attempts to stalk away.

But he catches her arm. ‘With a whole grounder army out there?’

‘We can’t defend ourselves if we’re starving, Bellamy,’ she tells him, and his jaw works.

_Trust me. If I thought we had a better option, I’d give you it._

He sighs again.

They gather who they can in the Dropship, and Bellamy, with his strong voice and unquestionable authority, gives them the rules. One gun per party. Ammo only for the grounders. No one stays out after dark. 

She’s glad he has him for this.

They’ve agreed that he’ll stay back to run the camp, keep security. She’s on her way to grab her own gun when a kid she’s barely interacted with accosts her, so keen and bright-eyed that she can’t bring herself to say no.

She does try to say no to Finn. It’s not a good idea for them to go by themselves. She’s not doing that to Raven. But he gives her his reasons that she can’t reasonably argue with, even if she knows they’re kind of bullshit. And Myles will be with them.

‘Haven’t really got a chance to hang with you guys much!’ Myles says brightly. 

No shit, Clarke can’t help but think. She’s been a little too busy running the camp to think about _hanging out_.

She doesn’t want to be annoyed by the kid. In fact, it’s impressive that he’s kept so much good cheer, with what’s happened lately. She should let him be happy, appreciate what they do have. But it’s when they’re properly tracking prints through the forest that she realises that talking a lot is how he hides (poorly) his nerves. He’s scared out of his mind.

And it’s not exactly helpful having him chattering in their ears as she and Finn try to pick their way through the forest. Clarke’s found that she’s actually a fairly good tracker, finding signs that even Finn misses. 

But then they begin to realise that the tracks are too perfect. Squished into the mud evenly, both in depth and length apart. 

‘We’re the ones being hunted,’ Finn whispers, and she can’t say she disagrees.

‘I don’t see anyone,’ Myles says, frantically looking around with his scope. 

_Thwip. Thwip. Thwip._

The arrows come out of nowhere, hitting him in the chest. Clarke tries to crawl over to him, but Finn hauls her away. ‘We have to leave him, let’s go!’

He’s right, and although she hates it, she gives Myles a last frantic, apologetic look before moving to run.

But they’re too late. The axe hits her behind her ear, and she falls to the ground, head ringing. She sees Finn fall too, and her vision goes hazy.

As she groans, turning onto her back, a face appears above hers. Honey-coloured hair, a disdainful expression. Anya.

For the second time in three days, she passes out.

*

Most of the hunters have gone out by now, but Bellamy’s worried. They only have about ten shooters left at camp, with limited bullets. And although he’d given the order to not shoot unless there were grounders, he doesn’t have the greatest confidence in scared, hungry kids not to waste what they had.

He heads to Raven’s tent, poking his head in.

‘We need more ammo,’ he tells her, blunt. He’s found that’s the best way to talk to her. She doesn’t appreciate people beating around the bush.

She shoves a handful of bullets into his palm. ‘That’s it until Jasper gets back, now get out of my tent.’ She’s in a bad mood, and she’s shoving all of her shit into a small pack, mouth pursed and eyes wet.

‘Where are you going?’

‘The hell out of here,’ Raven snaps.

_Like he’d care anyway._

‘No way,’ he says. ‘You’re not leaving.’ They can’t afford to lose _Raven._

She spins to him, eyes alight, the blue one darker and more menacing than usual.

‘Really? And what makes you think you can tell me what to do?’

_He’ll get out of my way or I’ll kick him where the sun doesn’t fucking shine._

‘Aren’t you a janitor?’ she spits. Okay, so she’s more than upset. He recognises, suddenly, the look in her eyes. Something like betrayal, like she doesn’t think she’s needed. Like she’s been abandoned.

He’d had that feeling just a week or so ago, shoveling the rations in his pack because his sister would never forgive him and the Ark would come down and kill him. A bad trip and fight to the death changed his mind.

But he needs to take a gentler tack with Raven.

‘Where’re you gonna go?’

‘Into these damn woods.’ Great. So like him, she has no plan. From the urgent way she’s packing, he’s guessing this decision had come on in the last ten minutes at the most. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find myself somewhere safe.’

‘Wait,’ he says as she tries to push past him. She glares at him, but he doesn’t let himself relent. He’d had Clarke to talk him down, make him realise why the camp needed him. He can do the same for Raven. ‘Don’t be an idiot. You go alone, and you’re dead or worse.’

_Didn’t know he cared._

She contemplates him, both eyes dark, and he thinks for a second she might relent. But then her jaw ticks up.

‘So what’s your plan? Sit here until you run out of bullets?’

Bellamy smirks. ‘Yeah. Or until you come up with something better.’

That surprises her. She blinks at him, and he has to sigh. Has she forgotten about her eyes? She has a gift arguably more useful than his, on the ground. The ability to _create_.

‘Come on, Raven. You came down here in a pod you rebuilt yourself. You made a bomb out of a tin can. What else have you got in that head of yours?’ It isn’t just because of her gift that she’s smart, Bellamy knows. The abilities their eyes give them only go so far. It’s how they use them that count.

She’s looking him up and down like she’s seeing him anew, silent for a moment.

 _Fine, maybe hot asshole is right_.

‘Radios,’ she says out loud, and he has to grin. Of course she’d come up with something that rivaled his own gift. Made it obsolete even. Radios were two-way, after all. It was all very well he could receive thoughts, but he couldn’t send them. If she could build radios, then…

‘See, we need you,’ Bellamy tells her after her explanation, like he needed one. ‘You may be a huge pain in the ass, but you’re smart.’

And he leaves before she can protest any more. She can run away after they get the radios done and defeat the grounders, if she wants. For now, she was staying here.

Bellamy gets the gunners they have set up, checks in on Jasper who’s making some kind of progress with the gunpowder, he thinks. Everyone’s where they should be, for now, and he heads off for a break of his own. 

He finds Octavia by herself in the Dropship, sorting through the supplies that Clarke had told him about.

She looks up as he comes in, giving him a small smile. They’ve been on better terms since the virus. He guesses that seeing her brother almost die made her a little sentimental. And on his part, well... He’s still angry about her going to see the grounder, but he understands that it did save them, in the end. And she’d stayed up all night to care for the sick.

He’s proud of her.

Bellamy takes a seat next to her, reaching for some bags to help her sort them. She gives him a look.

‘You don’t have to help, Bell. I’m sure you have a million other things to do.’

‘You’d be surprised. Most of them are out hunting, now.’ He sighs. ‘I’m sorry Dal was such an idiot.’

Octavia shrugs. ‘Well, he knows it’s his fault. And Murphy punched him in the face at least.’

He snorts. ‘A suitable punishment?’

She gives him a side glance. ‘I’m not sure if it was Murphy’s intent, but Dal did say some other shit to me, so maybe I should give him a punch of my own.’

Bellamy straightens, and Octavia rolls her eyes. ‘Calm down, it wasn’t that bad. Just…’ She eyes him. ‘Stuff about Lincoln.’

He clenches his jaw, but tries to tease her anyway. ‘Well, I don’t like your grounder, but pretty sure I’m the only one allowed to give you shit about it. Big brother privileges.’

She flicks a cashew looking thing at him. ‘Shut up.’

They’re silent for a while, piling the packages into smaller boxes, rationing them up. It’s nice. It’s kind of incredible that Bellamy feels like he can _joke_ with her about the grounder -- Lincoln.

‘You know, they have a name for it,’ Octavia says, breaking the quiet, and he looks up.

‘For what?’

‘The abilities. The eyes.’ She gestures. ‘You and Clarke and Raven and Lincoln.’

He frowns. ‘A name?’

‘Gracelings,’ she says. ‘I think it might be part of their language, I’m not sure. But that’s what they call you guys. The gifts themselves are Graces.’

‘That’s oddly poetic for a society that likes impaling people,’ he says, but Octavia just rolls her eyes.

‘At least they have a name. I think it’s kind of cool. I can say you’re _Graced_ with perception.’

He glances around, checking, and she huffs.

‘Relax, there’s no one around. Besides, I got the impression you’ve already told someone.’

There’s a hard look in her eye, slightly suspicious. He narrows his eyes right back, but she says the right name to him silently.

_Why’d you tell Clarke?_

Bellamy sighs. ‘I didn’t mean to. It kind of slipped out after…’ He hasn’t told Octavia the full story of what happened with Dax and the hallucinations. They weren’t exactly on speaking terms after that. He clears his throat. ‘She realised, but she doesn’t care, apparently.’

‘Really?’ Octavia’s eyebrows shoot up. 

He shrugs. ‘So she says. And she isn’t lying, so I guess I have to believe her.’

‘You know, I don’t even know for sure what _her_ Grace is. Healing, right?’

‘She told me she doesn’t know,’ he shrugs. ‘You know not everyone on the Ark does.’

‘Hmm,’ Octavia presses her lips together. She glances at him. ‘I have something to tell you.’

‘What?’

‘I know why you couldn’t hear Lincoln’s thoughts.’

He blinks. What? He knew Octavia had spent time with him, but...

‘You didn’t _tell him,_ did you? _’_

‘No! Of course not. But he told me his Grace.’

‘I still think that’s a stupid term,’ he grumbles, but she ignores him.

‘It’s silence.’

‘Like…?’

‘Like if he chooses to, no one can hear him. It’s why he’s good at scouting.’

‘Why he was good at spying on us, you mean,’ Bellamy says, but he’s interested.

Octavia bites her lip. ‘Yeah. I bet that’s why you couldn’t read him. He was purposely being silent. It probably cancelled out _your_ Grace.’

Bellamy nods slowly. ‘That does make sense. I guess that’s not as dangerous as I thought it could be.’

 _Yeah, but you think anything I come in contact with is dangerous_.

He throws the cashew back at her. ‘I still don’t trust him.’

Octavia smiles a little. ‘Yeah, I know. I can trust him enough for the both of us.’ Her smile fades a little. ‘I’m not sure, and he didn’t tell me as much, but I think Gracelings might be sort of...outcasts.’

‘Why?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Just, the way he was surprised at you and Clarke being our leaders. And he lives alone in a cave.’

‘A-plus detective work there, O.’

_Shut up._

But she smiles again. So he can be grateful for one thing, today, at least. He’s got a little part of his sister back.

His day takes a weird turn as night falls. The hunters get back, with at least some food that might last them a few more weeks. At least until the grounders attack, he hopes.

But Clarke and Finn aren’t with them. He can’t imagine they’ve run off together or anything, but he is kind of annoyed. Clarke knew the rules were to be back before dark. 

(He doesn’t let himself, consider, just yet, the other possibility.)

He’s heading to bunk down for the night when he realises there’s someone already in his tent. Raven. Waiting for him.

Bellamy frowns as ducks into his tent and takes her in, nervous and shifting back and forth on her feet.

‘They don’t waste time, I’ll give them that,’ Raven says, nonchalance with an edge of upset. ‘What’s it been, a day and a half?’

Since she and Finn broke up, he realises. He _had_ heard that particular tidbit through the grapevine.

He eyes her. ‘You’re mistaking me for someone who cares.’ It’s a lie, but it’s not like she’ll pick up on that. And it’s not like... he likes Clarke, but not to the extent he’s distressed about it like Raven is. He trusts her, he thinks she’s smart and resourceful and determined and pretty. But he’s not _upset_ that she’s rekindling her thing with Finn.

He’s not.

‘Time to move on,’ he tells her, staunch, but he’s not quite prepared for her version of that.

 _Yep. I think it is time to move on_ . He’s not quite sure why that thought got to _him_ until she’s sitting down on his bed, shedding her pants and standing in front of him, unleashing her ponytail so her hair tumbles down her shoulders.

_I’m hot, he’s hot. He can’t refuse, right?_

He keeps his eyes steady on hers, refusing to look down. She’s not wrong. Raven _is_ hot. Usually, she’d be entirely his type. 

‘Take off your clothes.’

He doesn’t move, not yet, and she sighs at his hesitation. 

‘Fine, I’ll go first.’ She takes off her shirt and underthings in one go, and Bellamy is _human_ , okay. But he’s also still...responsible. If he can call it that.

Raven’s looking at him, naked, like she’s itching for a fight rather than...well. A different kind of tussle.

‘If you’re looking for someone to talk you down, tell you you’re upset and not thinking straight...I’m not that guy.’ Not here. Not right now.

She doesn’t drop her gaze. Her odd eyes have their own kind of beauty, the dark blue like he imagines the ocean might look like, the lighter brown off-setting it so they both look like stunning jewels. Raven Reyes is gorgeous. But he doesn’t like her like that.

He’s not strong enough to deny her, though.

_If he was that guy, does he think I’d be here right now? Other than the fact he’s hot._

But all she says out loud, is ‘Good,’ and then she kisses him.

And he gets lost in her, just for a little while. If she needs to move on from someone else, he can be that guy. And he does his best to give her what she wants, what she needs. What her thoughts tell him she wants from him next, physically. She still trips over comparisons though, in her thoughts, and when he’s _not_ getting anything from her, he knows her mind is completely elsewhere, on someone else.

He has his own moments of wishing there was blonde hair, instead of brown.

So he’s not altogether surprised that soon after they’re done, she moves to leave. He still asks if it helped, wondering if she’ll lie to him.

She doesn’t.

He collapses back onto his pillow, regret creeping up his spine.

*

When they don’t blindfold her and Finn, Clarke knows something is very wrong. If they were going to be prisoners, they’d be gagged and bound and have sacks put over their heads. The grounders don’t do that.

As soon as Clarke is conscious she’s on her feet beside Finn, stumbling forward at the swords of Anya’s lackeys. Only twine is holding their wrists together, and they don’t seem to care that Clarke and Finn can see where they’re being taken.

She really does think she’s going to die, in that moment Anya draws the sword from behind her back. But instead, Anya cuts her bindings and old curtains are drawn back, revealing a girl lying on a table, struggling to breathe.

‘Help her,’ Anya demands. ‘If she dies, he dies,’ she says, pointing her dagger at Finn.

Clarke stares. ‘I don’t understand. Surely you have healers, why me--’

‘Our healer is gone,’ Anya says, hard. ‘And you are a _greisling_. We heard that you are a healer.’

There’s that word again, the one she’d said on the bridge. Clarke opens her mouth, unsure how to phrase it.

‘I’m not sure I understand. I’m the only healer we have, but I’m not...my mother was the healer, not me. I’m just all we’ve got. What is that word you keep calling me?’

Anya narrows her eyes, poking her in the chest with the tip of the knife. ‘ _Greisling_ . It’s what you are, signalled by your eyes. And the power that comes along with it is your _greis._ ’

‘Greis? Like...grace like graceful?’

Anya tilts her head. ‘If you like. Is your Grace not healing?’

Mutely, Clarke shakes her head. It’s not the best thing to admit right now, with the threat she’s just been given. But somehow she thinks lying will be worse.

‘Then what is it?’

‘I don’t know--’

‘You don’t _know_?’ Anya sounds incredulous. ‘How can we believe that? Tell us what it is, Graceling, or I’ll kill him now.’

‘I swear,’ Clarke begs. ‘Up where we come from, we didn’t live the lives you lead down here. It wasn’t always obvious what our powers -- our Graces -- were. For all I know I could be skilled in sailing a boat and I wouldn’t know because we never had the chance. Please, believe me. Don’t kill him. I may not be an expert healer but I know more than most...maybe I can still save her.’

There’s silence, Anya hardly blinking as she stares back at Clarke. She’s impossible to read, and Clarke can only hold her breath, hoping that the desperation on her face shows she’s telling the truth.

‘Fine,’ she finally says abruptly. ‘But the deal still stands. We’ll provide you with what equipment we can. For his sake,’ she tilts her head at Finn, ‘I hope you can save her. Her name is Tris.’

Clarke swallows hard, staring down at the shaking girl on the table. She can’t be older than fourteen. 

‘Clarke, you can do this,’ Finn says, and she takes a deep breath as Anya moves to leave. 

‘Wait,’ she says. ‘What happened to her?’

Anya turns and glares. ‘She was on the bridge when your bomb exploded. You did this to her.’

She leaves then, muttering instructions to the guards left behind in a language she hasn’t heard before. Clarke looks back at Tris. 

This was it. Now or never.

She runs through the checklist of things her mother drilled into her. Heart rate, temperature, consciousness. But it’s clear the main problem is her breathing, and once Finn helps her lift Tris up so she can press her ear to her back, she knows what’s wrong.

All the lessons her mother gave her swim through her memories. Heating up the blade, the number of intercostal spaces to reach the right area of the lung, how deep a tube needed to be inserted to reach the lung cavity.

It works, miraculously. 

Yet it’s still not enough.

It’s been two days since the bomb on the bridge. Tris had been taken from there back to this hovel, given no medical care. How long had Anya waited to ambush Clarke outside the walls? If only she had been earlier, her blood wouldn’t be septic right now. But it’s not even her _job_. Why was this little girl fighting anyway?

She spits as much to Anya, but the leader just looks impassive.

‘She was with me. She was my second. It’s how we train them to be warriors.’

‘So the killing can just go on and on,’ Clarke seethes.

Anya snarls. ‘ _You_ put the bomb on the bridge, _you_ did this to her!’

‘You were coming to _attack_ \--’ Clarke closes her eyes. Arguing wouldn’t get them anywhere. Tris was struggling more and more, still bleeding. ‘Blood,’ she realises, saying it out loud. ‘She needs clean blood.’

‘Transfusion,’ Finn says, and she nods. It’s to his credit he’s keeping up with her, helping her at every turn. It is his life on the line, she reasons, numbing herself to the possibility that if she _fails_ …

She tries her best. She does. They don’t have tubing so they get a syringe. Anya refuses to give blood, so Finn offers. 

But Tris is too far gone. And she stops breathing, and her pulse halts, just as Clarke’s trying to find a vein.

She’s failed. 

Clarke looks at Finn, horrified. The grounder that’s been helpful, the man with the limp, is staring at them both.

Anya hovers over Tris’s body. Whispering foreign words and taking a knife to cut a braid from the girl’s hair. There are tears in her eyes, and it’s the most human Clarke’s seen her.

But she’s all steel when she turns to a guard. ‘Take him away and kill him.’

‘No!’ Clarke cries, trying to fight them off, trying to get to Finn. But there’s too many and they’re too strong, and Finn’s carried away from her. ‘I did everything I _could_ , Anya, _please,’_ she yells, but the pleas fall on deaf ears.

He’s going to die, and it’s all her fault.

They hold her back for long enough that it’s impossible for her to know where they’ve taken him. He’s probably dead by now, Clarke thinks dully. And then the second guard is called away too, leaving Clarke and the grounder that had been more helpful by themselves.

She starts packing away the rusty medical tools, out of a lack of anything to do. They haven’t killed her, and it’s now clear what’s going to happen. They need a healer. That must have been why they targeted her in the first place, why Finn was the collateral, and not her own life.

Unlucky for them, she’s not _Graced_ with any healing ability. Clearly.

‘Anya will take no pleasure in your friend’s death,’ the grounder says to her quietly, but she just glares at him. He stares back. ‘Prove your worth, and you’ll be welcomed here.’

‘I couldn’t save Tris,’ Clarke points out. ‘I don’t have the Grace you need. Why would you want me?’

His eyes glitter with something. ‘You’re better than nothing. Our old healer was not Graced either. Besides, maybe your power will turn out to be useful to us. If not, you’ll be outcast anyway, so I’d try to be good at your new job if I were you.’

‘Outcast?’

He smiles, but it isn’t friendly or happy. It’s dark, menacing. Sardonic. ‘Gracelings cannot be trusted. They are only allowed in the tribe if they are useful to us. Otherwise, you will be left to the forest.’

‘Meaning I can go back home?’ Clarke asks, disbelieving. 

There’s a long silence, and Clarke glances at him. He’s staring at her again, grave.

‘Tomorrow there’ll be nothing for you to go back to.’

She doesn’t let the shock show. She wills the tension to leave her shoulders, turning to him, impassive. But inside, her mind’s awhirl. She has to escape, to get back and warn them. Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, Monty, Jasper, the hundred. They’ll all be killed if she can’t get out of here. 

And she’s already let one of them down today.

Clarke makes sure she’s nonchalant, in holding the scalpel in her left hand, dangling it to the side like she’s barely aware it’s there. 

Instead, she asks a question she’s curious about anyway, ever since she saw the blistered scars on Tris’s back, reminding her of the ones she saw on Lincoln, when he’d been trussed up in the Dropship.

‘Those marks on her shoulder...what were they? Lincoln has them too.’

‘Each scar marks a kill in combat,’ he intones, and Clarke stares.

‘Five kills? She was a little girl.’

‘She was brave,’ the grounder says grandly, lifting his chin.’

And now here comes her chance. She stalks towards him, pretending to be horrified, pretending to be curious.

‘How many do you have?’

Just like a man, to want to show off what he thought made him a badass. This trick had worked on Bellamy, just a few short weeks ago, when she needed his gun. He rips open his armour to show her, and she knows he won’t be able to resist talking about it. It was the first thing she noticed about him, his limp. Favouring his left leg.

‘That’s a lot,’ she notices, and he nods.

‘And half were after I hurt my knee.’

That’s what she needed to know.

Her leg kicks out hard at his right knee, and he yells in pain. It gives her a grim satisfaction, a spark running from her toes to her head to the hand holding the scalpel.

And then her body seems to take over. She slashes out with the blade at his shoulder, holding off a punch from his other hand and aiming for his neck next. It’s eerily accurate, her hand finding the correct artery to slice open without her even thinking about it. He tries to cry out, but she presses her hands against his mouth.

‘Shh,’ she whispers, watching as he tries in vain to fight her off, still shaking, still kicking out. But it does nothing to her, and she presses harder, staring him in the eyes as slowly but surely, the light in them dies as he does.

He’s dead. She’s killed a man. Not through failure, not through bad timing, not through choices she thought were removed from a situation.

He’s dead because she killed him purposely.

But Clarke doesn’t have time to stop and let it sink in. Any moment, the other guard could be back, _Anya_ could be back. 

She runs.

She runs out of the hovel, in the forest like she’s never run before. It’s the right way, she knows instinctively, back to the camp. 

She runs and runs and runs and doesn’t think about Finn dead because of her failures and the grounder dead because of her successes. She doesn’t think about how it felt for the man’s life to vanish before her eyes, _because_ of her. She doesn’t think about how her body just knew what to do, how to slash and aim and cover his mouth so he couldn’t recover.

Except she does, and maybe that’s what distracts her as she runs straight into the trap, her right leg zipping out from under her as she’s swung up into the air, blood rushing to her head.

Whatever her “Grace” is, if it’s to do with how she effortlessly killed the grounder today, it’s not helping now. 

She’s caught.

*******

Bellamy focuses all his energy on mobilising the hundred, building up their defenses, trying his damn hardest to make sure they’re not going to die.

He can feel that the grounders will be coming in his bones, not just because of his perception, his _Grace_ , as Octavia keeps calling it, but because it’s obvious. The grounders took Clarke and Monty and Finn. If that’s not a precursor to an attack, he doesn’t know what is.

And now that Clarke is gone, he’s in charge. He has to do it for the both of them.

‘Better hope those landmines work,’ he tells Raven. ‘All the gunpowder in them could be going towards grenades.’

_Does he want to come over here and test one?_

He bites back on retorting to her thoughts. He can tell she’s frustrated about Finn, angry with herself about what she did with Bellamy now that she’s found out he _didn’t_ run off with Clarke.

He regrets it too.

‘I need this entire section mined by morning,’ he says instead, keeping his face still. ‘And then we start on the south field.’

He goes to leave, but of course his directions have made her realise his intent. Raven. Too smart to hide anything from her.

‘Hey! I told you, we’re going after Finn, Clarke, and Monty in the morning.’

His jaw works. ‘And I told you, nobody leaves this camp.’ He goes to leave again, but she still pursues him.

‘I’m talking to you! We can’t just abandon our people.’ _And there’s no way he’s stopping me from going after Finn._ ‘You wanna lead them? Show them you give a damn.’

But that’s the problem. He _does_ give a damn. He gives a damn about Clarke, about Monty, even about Finn. But he made a promise to Octavia, and he made a promise to the delinquents behind these walls. And if they go outside them, the chance of them dying is too high.

_Bang._

A shot goes off, but according to Bellamy’s senses, there are no grounders nearby. And he feels like he’d know, by now. Especially with how determined they are to kill them, kill _him._

No, it’s Sterling, having fallen asleep on watch, somehow setting his goddamn gun off. Before he can think, Bellamy is up in his face.

‘What the hell is the matter with you?’

‘I’m sorry, man, I’ve been on watch all day--’

‘We’ve all been on watch all day,’ Bellamy explodes. ‘That bullet was one less dead grounder.’

 _Bellamy_. Octavia is staring at him, and he glares back. She decides to voice her grievance, not content to leave it between them.

‘Bell, you’re scaring people.’

They don’t get it. This isn’t play-time, this isn't training. This isn’t a drill. 

‘They _should_ be scared!’ He turns to the crowd he knows is watching him, looking each one of them in the eye. ‘Our time is up. We bought ourselves some preparation with our bomb, but it’s also made them angrier. They _want_ to wipe us out. They’re out there right now, waiting for us to leave, picking us off one by one. Clarke, Monty, and Finn are gone, probably dead. And if you want to be next, I can’t stop you.’ He looks at Raven. ‘But no guns are leaving this camp! This camp is the _only_ thing keeping us _alive._ ’

It annoys him even more that Raven’s eyes are boring into him like she understands now, or something. He yells at them all to get back to work, and goes into the Dropship to pore over his shitty battle plans for the thousandth time.

Myles groans in the corner, the arrow still bloody, sticking out of his stomach. They can’t save him either, not without Clarke. It reminds him of Jasper, the spearing that started this whole mess, and it reminds him that Clarke is out there, with those same grounders. Dead, if not worse.

A resentful presence comes through the Dropship door. Jasper.

_He’s a selfish dick. He doesn’t care about Monty, he’s not even saving Clarke._

‘Don’t you think I want to go after them too,’ he grits out to Jasper. He doesn’t worry that Jasper will think oddly of the unprompted outburst, because it’s too clear on the kid’s face what he’s feeling.

‘If it was you out there,’ Jasper says, all quiet anger. ‘You think Monty, Clarke, or Finn would hide behind these walls?’

It’s an interesting question. For anyone else, he might say no straight up. Finn, maybe, would be happy to leave him behind. Monty would certainly want to come after him. Clarke...Clarke’s logical. She usually did the smart thing, the one that would save as many lives as possible.

But he can’t quite shake the intuition that she’d make an exception for him, and guilt boils again in his stomach.

‘No,’ he answers Jasper. ‘They’d go after me, but then they’d be dead too.’ He sighs. ‘Jasper, I’m doing what I think is right for the group.’

He doesn’t mean to raise his voice at the end, but he can’t help but let his frustration through. It’s like they all _want_ to be killed.

‘Funny, you didn’t think that way when Octavia was missing,’ Jasper replies tightly, and gives another taut response about the gunpowder before climbing up the ladder and disappearing from sight, resentment still radiating towards Bellamy.

Fucking kids.

He leaves to get water for Myles, death glaring anyone who dares glance his way, knowing the anger in his strange stare will scare them back to work. At least it’s good for something.

He’s on his way back to the Dropship when he perceives two strange, alarmed thoughts from inside.

_Oh god, please let Bellamy come back soon._

_Fuck, if Bellamy finds out…_

Jasper and Murphy. He starts walking faster, remembering that Jasper’s radio is still open, and holds it up to listen.

‘You know what will happen to me if you tell Bellamy,’ comes the tinny voice of Murphy, like he’s talking on the other side of the room.

He can’t help himself. Bellamy lifts the transmitter to his mouth. ‘Tell Bellamy what?’

_I have to let Bellamy know._

_I have to stop him from telling Bellamy._

He starts running, and just as he is, Jasper is shouting something into the radio.

‘Murphy has a gun, he killed Myles--’ There’s a scuffle and the radio shuts off, as does Bellamy’s sense of Jasper’s consciousness.

_Fuck._

He runs, but he’s too late for the Dropship door closing, too late despite shouting himself hoarse through the metal walls.

‘You try to be a hero, Jasper dies!’ Murphy yells back, muffled, and the thoughts that accompany them aren’t too encouraging either.

_Bellamy’s next on my fucking list._

He curses Murphy’s name to the stars. This was the last thing they needed. An army of grounders was out there, ready to kill them at any provocation, and now Murphy had decided to show his true colours.

Bellamy breathes deeply, trying to think. And then he tells everyone to get back to work, and goes to find Raven.

*

She must have been unconscious by the time they found her hanging from the tree; she probably passed out from the bloodrush. Clarke wakes up in chains, lying in the mud at the edge of a campsite.

Horses are braying at the sides of the clearing, and Anya is starting a fire with nonchalant adeptness. It’s clear she’s done it a thousand times. Clarke heaves herself up and resigns herself to glaring. The chains are too heavy to escape from, and she’s willing to bet she’s surrounded. Certainly, Anya isn’t moving her eyes off Clarke, and if they knew about the grounder back in the shed, they can’t be too happy with her.

But they haven’t killed her, at least. Not yet.

Her and Anya’s glare off is interrupted by a new grounder appearing at the treeline, an arrogance to his voice and a menace to the way he glances at Clarke like she’s shit on his shoe. 

‘Your right flank is weak.’

‘My archers are in the trees ready to shoot anyone hostile. You’re not hostile, are you, Tristan?’

It intrigues Clarke, the tenseness in their voices. She can tell Anya doesn’t like this new guy, even if she’s familiar with him. The conversation is cut off to her when they switch to their own language, but the grounder soon stalks his way over to her, and Clarke scrambles back, not willing to let herself go easily.

‘So this is who’s beating you?’

‘Who are you?’

He grins, a terrifying sight on a man decorated by knives and blood. He leans forward to say the next words in a soft and dangerous voice. ‘I’m the man sent to slaughter your people, Graceling _._ ’

‘ _Heda don sen yu op?’_ Anya interrupts, sounding shocked.

‘ _Yu gonakru laik ain nao_ ,’ Tristan replies, and Anya looks furious, but to Clarke’s surprise, gives a tense, reluctant nod of acquiescence to whatever he’s said.

‘ _Oma fossupa ste enti,’_ he roars to the other grounders, and they seem to look _cowed._ Whoever this Tristan was, they were afraid of him. ‘ _Lid emo op dina!_ ’

They disperse, and the new grounder stalks slowly up to Anya, who’s still looking like she’s swallowed something sour. 

‘We march on the invaders’ camp at first light.’ His use of English is deliberate, Clarke realises. He _wants_ her to know all her friends will die soon. ‘ _Ai na frag emo op weron bilaik yu let oso daun._ ’ His gaze turns to Clarke. ‘Starting with this one.’

He reaches for a weapon, looking at her with intent, and time slows down. She scrambles back, seeing the murder in his eyes. 

But a shout interrupts his pursuit.

‘ _Anya! Chek au! Dei flashen de!’_

Anya runs over. ‘A signal fire.’ Clarke sees a light sprout from the mountain range over.

‘Reapers,’ Tristan growls.

‘ _Flag emo daun_ ,’ Anya snaps to one of her warriors. _‘Tel emo op bilaik oso ai em op.’_ Clarke has no idea what’s happening, but whatever it is, it’s saved her for the time being. ‘ _Ai na sen op mou snap hosa bilaik lom heda op_ ,’ Anya says directly to Tristan

‘No,’ Tristan says. ‘ _Nou taim. Frag du op,_ ’ he gestures at Clarke. ‘ _En hit osir op raun klinrona._ ’

To Clarke’s relief, he leaves, but now Anya is looking back at her, intense. With a gesture, a grounder is summoned and pauses at her side.

‘Is the boy dead?’ A nod.

No. _No._ No, it wasn’t true. Finn couldn’t be dead. She hadn’t let herself believe it, until now. But the evidence is right here. The one who killed him, right in front of her.

‘Good.’ She gives Clarke one last savage glance. ‘ _Frag greisling op en mafta osir op._ ’

 _Greisling_ . That was her. Was _frag_ ‘kill’? 

She tries to scramble away, but the grounder yanks on her chains, causing her to stumble and fall, and there’s a sharp pain in her head before she blacks out.

The first thing she thinks when she wakes up is that she must be dead. There’s the clatter of hooves underneath her, and maybe an afterlife for her would include horses. She’s always liked them.

But soon it becomes obvious that the heat of someone holding her onto the horse is real, and the thunking rhythm jolting her up and down is the gallop of the same animal. And in her blurry vision, a signal fire comes into focus, before the horse is stopping, the grounder is dragging her off the horse, and he’s cutting her restraints.

She can barely focus on that though, because in front of her is an apparition. 

Clarke never thought she’d be so relieved to see him. She runs to Finn and hugs him. ‘I don’t understand…’

Finn looks meaningfully past her, to the grounder, who takes the skull-like mask off to reveal dark skin and green and black eyes.

Lincoln.

‘He saved my life, killing one of his own people to do it.’

Well at least she isn’t the only one today. She walks towards him, hesitant. The last she saw him, he was yelling at her to take Octavia home safe from the ill-fated peace talks on the bridge. 

‘A signal fire, isn’t it? It was you?’

‘We needed a distraction,’ Lincoln says. ‘But it didn’t work well enough.’ As they watch, the fire on the other range, the one Clarke had watched be lit to signal back, flitters out.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means Anya knows Clarke isn’t dead,’ Lincoln says, grave.

And then they’re running. 

It’s back towards their camp, if a bit more to the west, but it’s unfamiliar. They were never allowed to explore the forest to its full extent, not with the grounders out after them. Lincoln leads them to a dark opening, gnarled over with roots and mud. She would have said it was a cave, but it’s square and she can see stonework.

‘What is it?’ Finn asks and Lincoln surges forward, pushing them ahead of him. 

‘Someplace they won’t follow. It leads everywhere; there’s an opening near your camp. If we use the tunnels we should make it before Tristan. Now _go._ ’

They run until there’s no sound behind them. It’s her and Finn up front, god knows if Lincoln is following. But if he’s right, and they can get back to camp, Clarke isn’t stopping. Finn mutters a few times that it’s too dark, but Clarke’s eyes adjust quickly, and it’s only Lincoln catching up to them that makes them halt.

He startles her, because the hand on her shoulder comes with no footsteps of warning, even as Finn’s echo right beside her. And all at once, Clarke realises what Lincoln’s Grace must be. No wonder Bellamy couldn’t hear him, if…

‘Wait a second, I’ll start a fire.’

There’s the clacking of stones, and the whoosh of flame as Lincoln coaxes the flames to life.

Finn takes the opportunity to go and listen out for pursuit, and he looks impressed when he returns. ‘You were right. They didn’t follow.’

Lincoln just nods. ‘Reapers use these tunnels.’

The word that Tristan had used at the sight of the signal. Were the reapers the mysterious other population living on Earth, the ones Anya had alluded to fighting against?

‘What’s a reaper?’ Finn asks for her, and Lincoln’s jaw clenches.

‘Pray you never find out.’

They go to move on, but the grounder is obviously injured, even as he tries to wave her off. She ignores him. Her people might be _soft_ , but at least she doesn’t let them die in vain. And he does seem to appreciate her prowess as she rids him of the arrow.

‘What my people are doing to yours is wrong,’ he eventually says in answer to her and Finn’s questions. She _had_ wondered why he’d helped them when Octavia was safe back at camp. Although she wouldn’t be safe for too much longer, if they didn’t get there before Tristan’s army.

And her theory about his Grace is proven right when, even as she presses a red hot knife to Lincoln’s wound, to cauterise it, he doesn’t make a single sound.

Clarke realises, as they trek through the tunnel system, that it must be the remnants of either a mine or underground train network. Probably the former, because although there are train tracks bolted to the ground, they’re small, and she’s sure that pre-bombs Earth had more advanced technology.

Eventually they reach a fork, and the distant hollering of what must be the Reapers start echoing down towards them. Clarke sees the sheer terror in Lincoln’s eyes before he extinguishes their torch, and wonders what exactly these Reapers were to make him and a grounder like Tristan so scared.

Still, they creep forward until the group of Reapers are within spitting distance. They seem to be celebrating over some sort of meat. Not meat. A body.

‘What is this…?’ she whispers when Finn points out the other bodies in the carts. They inch closer to the torchlight, and their way out, Lincoln handing them his book and his map.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Distract them. Worry about yourselves, and get back to camp before Tristan and his scouts. Leave, or you’ll all die.’

‘Where are we supposed to go?’ Clarke asks, desperate. It was all very well to run, but to _where_? Into the clutches of more grounders?

Lincoln bites his lip. ‘In my book, there’s a map. If you chart a course to the Eastern sea, you’ll find a clan there, led by a woman.’ He glances at Clarke. ‘A Graceling. She’s a friend. Tell her I sent you.’

She nods, and he looks satisfied. 

‘Alright. Run when the coast is clear.’

‘Lincoln,’ Finn starts, and the grounder looks back, impatient. ‘Thanks.’

He nods gruffly. ‘Get Octavia out of there.’ And then he’s off, sneaking forwards, making no sound, approaching the Reaper closest to them to slit his throat. Clarke and Finn wait with bated breath as he makes his commotion and runs. 

She hopes his Grace will be enough to save him. 

Clarke and Finn start forwards, creeping past the carts of cadavers, but a movement from the corner of her eye makes her freeze.

‘Clarke, come on. They’re dead.’

If they were dead, she’d be fine with it. Or more fine with it. She’s seen enough dead bodies to last her, and she’s used to it now. But she’d seen _movement._ She rips back the tarp to see the blinking body and has to hold back her revulsion.

‘They’re alive,’ she says faintly.

‘Clarke, look out!’

She spins just in time to be knocked to the ground by a fist, attached to the huge, menacing body of a Reaper. Uninterested in her, it attacks Finn now, knocking him to the ground and choking him.

‘Get off!’ Without thinking, Clarke launches herself at the Reaper, somehow tackling him away from Finn. But now the monster is on top of her, and they struggle for a while, longer than Clarke should really be lasting. But her fists are flying into parts of him that she never would have thought to, her legs twisting around his so she can flip him onto his back. And out of the corner of her eye, she spots a rock.

She grabs it and uses it with all her strength, hitting and hitting into the Reaper’s temple until blood is all over her hands and a gasping Finn is hauling her off.

‘He’s dead, Clarke. Come on, we’ve gotta go. They’re coming back.’

Mindless, she follows him, stumbling forward into the dark. 

*

_Bellamy! Murphy has Jasper?_

He can sense Octavia’s panic before she gets to him, out of breath, eyes wide. He wishes again that his ability went the other way, that he could calm her without revealing his plan out loud.

‘Yeah,’ is all he can say, trying to eye her with meaning. ‘South foxhole done?’ But she doesn’t get his message.

‘What? Bellamy, my friend’s in there with a killer!’

‘O, look around. We need to get everyone working again, if the grounders come now, we’re dead--’

_Get your priorities straight!_

She pushes past him and begins to shout, and he has to try and calm her down, or he’ll never get the hundred working again.

‘Murphy! I swear to god if you even touch Jasper--!’

‘Octavia, I got this,’ he tries. ‘Just listen, seriously--’

‘It doesn’t look like you’re doing anything about it!’

‘Bellamy,’ Raven saunters up to him, head low, because at least she’s smart enough to understand why he’s trying to keep everyone calm. ‘You were right, there’s a loose panel in the back. We pop it, we can get in through the floor.’

‘Good, do it,’ he says, and Raven nods to him before heading off.

He turns back to Octavia, who’s at least looking sheepish.

_Sorry._

Bellamy gives her a small smile, because she really isn’t one to usually apologise. He appreciates that she acknowledged it this time.

But now he has a harder job to do.

‘Murphy,’ he says into the radio, senses the boy inside’s anger just at the sound of his voice. ‘I know you can hear me. All our ammo and food is on the middle floor, you know that. You’re leaving us vulnerable to an attack. I can’t let that happen.’

It does the job.

‘In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not exactly in control now,’ Murphy snarls down the radio.

‘Come on, Murphy. You don’t want to hurt Jasper. You want to hurt _me_.’

He ignores the new wave of emotion. The anger from Murphy. The fear from Jasper, the wish that Bellamy will come save him. Well, he’s not one to say no.

‘So what do you say? How about you trade him for me?’

_Bellamy, no!_

He ignores Octavia’s protests, concentrating on Murphy’s reactions. He can tell he has him interested. All he needs is another push.

‘All you have to do is let him go and I’ll take his place.’

The reply is all he needs to hear. ‘How?’

‘Bellamy,’ Octavia pleads. ‘If you do this, he’ll kill you.’

‘If I don’t, he’ll kill Jasper,’ Bellamy replies. And he’s learnt, over the past weeks, that he can’t let that happen. He’s the leader. He’s taking responsibility.

It’s enough. Murphy agrees, and the door slowly lowers.

‘Just you, Bellamy! Unarmed! Ten seconds or I’ll put one in Jasper’s leg!’

_Bellamy, please._

‘Get everyone back to work, O. Grounders are still coming. I can handle Murphy.’

Murphy counts down in the background as Bellamy sheds his weapons, feeling somewhat naked without them. Each number is a promise to kill him, and Bellamy hardens his resolve.

 _We’ll get you out,_ Octavia promises, silent but frightened.

He nods, and gives himself up with a final nod to his sister. 

And then he’s in the lion’s den.

Murphy moves him at gunpoint to the back of the ship, the dangerous glint in his eye nothing compared to the onslaught of anger and murderous intent in his thoughts. But he doesn’t know he’s giving Bellamy that, and it’s not like it’d help for him to know. 

It just helps Bellamy, knowing that every move has to be still and slow, or he might set Murphy off.

He registers, suddenly, the movement under the floor of Raven and Jasper, luckily too quiet for Murphy to sense. But it’s coming loud and clear through to Bellamy, especially with their intent being to save him.

_He’s up there because of me. We can’t lose Bellamy too._

There’s a muffled noise accompanying the last sentence, and Bellamy’s just relieved that Murphy’s too busy loving the sound of his own voice to notice, and that Raven’s probably shutting him up, judging from the tail-end of the next thing he catches.

_They are like, right above your head._

But as much as Bellamy wants to multi-task, he can’t concentrate on both the people below and the boy who wants to kill him in front of him. And one seems a little more pressing.

‘Over there, and tie those two belts together.’ A gunshot accompanies it, one that Bellamy knows is Murphy’s way of scaring Bellamy into complying. Not because of the danger, but because he knows Octavia is out there worrying about him, and that it tortures Bellamy to know they’re not working, saving themselves from the grounders.

_Bellamy?!_

Octavia must realise if she wants a response, she’ll have to radio in for it to make sense. Her voice warbles, frantic through the radio, a few seconds later and Murphy looks smug.

‘ _Bellamy, are you okay!?’_

‘You want her to know you’re alive? Start tying.’

_‘Bellamy!’_

He curses again the extent of his power, and wonders if Octavia was right to be jealous. Maybe she should have his abilities, his “ _Grace”_ . At least then he’d be able to communicate with her _._

He starts tying, though, knowing exactly what Murphy intends to do with it, although he thinks it might be better to give him the satisfaction of thinking it will surprise him.

‘I’m fine,’ he says across the room. ‘Get back to work, all of you. And tell Raven to hurry her ass up,’ he adds tightly, and Murphy switches it off with a mean expression.

‘Finished? Alright. Get up and toss it over.’

It’s all done at gunpoint, at the mercy of Murphy’s satisfaction. 

_Now he’ll have to go through it all. Choke and strangle and die. A shame there’s no crowd to cheer me on to do it, but I guess that’s a privilege only he gets._

‘What do you want me to say? You want me to apologise? I’m--’

Murphy shifts the gun, eyes narrowed.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bellamy finishes. And he means it, he does. He shouldn’t have done it. But Murphy shouldn’t have gone after a little girl, and that little girl shouldn’t have killed Wells, and Jaha shouldn’t have upheld the corrupt system of executions. It’s a cycle that has to end somewhere.

The boy in front of him doesn’t understand that, though. And doesn’t know that Bellamy truly means it. He just sniffs, the malice not fading even a little.

‘You got it all wrong, Bellamy. I don’t want an apology. I want you to feel what I felt, and then... I want you to die.’ Well, at least he’s voiced most of what he’s thinking, and Bellamy doesn’t need to pretend anymore, that he doesn’t know. He looks up at the noose Murphy forced him to tie, and swallows.

He drags the makeshift footstool over. Stands on it, at Murphy’s demand.

‘Now put it over your head.’

‘This is insane, the grounders--’

Murphy lets a shot off, and Bellamy winces, feeling all the panic from outside at once, especially his sister’s. 

_Bellamy, please don’t be dead. Please._

‘Put it over your head,’ Murphy repeats, and Bellamy does so, reluctant, knowing another shot let off could hit someone below, could panic his sister enough for them to all be killed by grounders invading a camp that’s completely unaware.

‘Happy now?’

Murphy is. He tugs the other end of the belt-rope with satisfaction.

_Soon he’ll know._

Bellamy stares back, unwilling to give him the additional happiness of seeing him strain, seeing him scared.

Murphy scoffs. ‘You’re so brave, aren’t you? You and your little fighting power, hell of a lot of good that’s doing you now. You came in here thinking you could turn this all round, that one of your friends would figure out a way to help you. What are you thinking now?’

He’s thinking that he’s going to strangle Murphy when he’s out of here. He’s thinking that Raven needs to hurry the fuck up. He’s thinking that the belt around his throat is cutting off his windpipe gently, as Murphy tugs on it, a grimace lacing his bastard rat face.

‘I got to hand it to you. You got them all fooled.’ If only he knew. ‘They actually look up to you, almost as much as they look up to Clarke.’ He shifts the stool beneath Bellamy’s feet so it wobbles, and Bellamy winces, trying to balance himself on his toes.

‘We know the truth, don’t we? That you’re a coward. I learnt that the day you kicked out the crate from beneath me. Isn’t that what you said? That you were just giving the people what they wanted?’

‘I should have stopped them,’ Bellamy grits. He should have been able to block them all out, he should have listened to Clarke when she told him he wasn’t a killer, not back then. He shouldn’t have let it get as far as it did.

_It’s almost like he cares._

‘Yeah, it’s a little late for that now.’

‘How is this going to end for you?’ Bellamy has to ask. ‘You kill me, then what? You think they’re gonna let you walk away?’

Murphy smirks. ‘Well, I think the Princess is dead,’ he says, and Bellamy feels his stomach drop. As much as he’s said it, he doesn’t quite want to believe that Clarke’s gone. ‘And I know the King’s about to die, so they’re all in need of a new leader, right?’

Bellamy can’t help but choke, not even from the noose.

‘Yeah, me,’ Murphy snarls. ‘And maybe I’ll have to kill your grounder-pounding little sister--’

Bellamy kicks out at him, because Murphy’s made the mistake of getting a little too close with his taunting, both physically and emotionally.

But it’s a mistake on his part too, because Murphy tugs with full strength on the belt, and it’s only a yelp from below that interrupts him. 

Raven. Bellamy’s heart leaps out of his chest, and Murphy makes the wrong conclusion, but it still doesn’t matter when the result is the same. He opens fire at the floor, and kicks away the stool when he sees Bellamy’s trying to get free.

_Now he knows._

He’s choking, scrabbling at the belt cutting through his neck in vain, head going light as the air constricts him, thrashing as Murphy snarls that using his hands is a cheat, because his were bound.

Somehow Bellamy manages to punch him away, but he’s still choking, still knows that if Raven was hit and the doors aren’t opening, he’s about to die slowly and painfully.

And then Murphy’s hitting him in the chest with the butt of a gun, and he doesn’t quite register the next few minutes, his vision blurry and his perception swimming around him.

He feels someone grab his legs, a voice yelling his name, in his head and around him, and he’s dropping to the floor.

_Breathe! Come on, Bellamy!_

The air comes back to him slowly. 

The rage returns faster.

He’s climbing to his feet as soon as his hands aren’t numb anymore, climbing up the ladder after Murphy, knowing he’s still up there.

He’s gonna fucking kill him.

_He’s gonna fucking kill me._

He’s slamming his shoulder against the door when the explosion hits and the door gives way. Bellamy climbs up into airborne ash and smoke, heart sinking as he realises what’s happened. The hole in the side of the Dropship is feet wide, and Murphy’s careening away up the hill.

‘He sure knows how to make an exit,’ Jasper marvels from next to him. ‘Should we go after him?’

Bellamy watches as Murphy pauses to look back.

‘No. Grounders will take care of Murphy. He turns to Jasper, who’s still wide-eyed. ‘We’re going after Clarke, Monty, and Finn.’

_He changed his mind._

‘You and Raven were right. We don’t abandon our own. Two guns, you and me.’ He heads towards the hatch. ‘Raven needs to stay here for our defenses. We lost a day and our gunpowder because of this. Raven!’

‘Bellamy, wait.’

He looks up at Jasper, and is for once unprepared for the hug that ensues. He isn’t quite sure what to do. He’s never received a hug like that from anyone but Octavia.

‘Thank you. A long way from “whatever the hell you want”.’

Bellamy grins, but the moment of victory, of comradery, is short-lived. The radio crackles, and Miller’s urgent voice is yelling through.

‘We got movement on the south wall, someone’s coming!’

He and Jasper exchange glances. 

‘Never time to rest, huh?’

‘Let’s go, quick.’

If it was grounders, well. They’d be ready.

*

The tunnel takes them, finally, to an opening. The forest on the other side looks sort of familiar but Finn looks confused.

‘Where are we?’

‘I think camp’s that way,’ Clarke points to the north-east. ‘But fuck, Finn. What the hell was that back there? The Reapers, the bodies still alive? I swear the more we learn about this place the less we know.’

Finn grimaces. ‘I don’t know, but we’ll have to figure it out later. Are you sure it’s that way to camp?’ He flips through Lincoln’s book as if to find a map, and Clarke sighs, going to take it off him. 

‘I’m pretty sure it’s that way, and there weren't any other branches of the tunnel to take.’

Finn catches her fingers in his, staring at the now drying blood from the Reaper’s head, from when she bashed it in with the rock. 

‘Here, there’s a creek just here, you can wash it off…’

She allows him to drag her down and start washing the blood off her hands. It seems to freak him out more than it does her. 

‘Finn...I did what I had to do. He would have killed us.’

‘I know, I just...I’m used to seeing it because you’re healing someone.’

She chews on the inside of her cheek. ‘Finn…’

‘I should have fought the guy instead. I should have...I should have fought for you…’

Clarke knows he doesn’t mean physically, back in the caves anymore. ‘Finn, don’t…’

‘Clarke...I love you. I’m _in_ love with you.’

It hits like a spear to the heart, and not in a good way. She looks at him with something like horror, she’s sure, sees the apprehension on his face as he takes in her reaction.

‘Finn...I can’t. Not with Raven, not with...I’m sorry, it’s just not going to--’

_Boom._

An explosion in the distance, from the direction she’s sure the camp is in, saves her from having to complete the sentence, although she’s sure the message came across anyway.

‘We’re too late. Come on.’ And thankfully, he follows without protest.

They sprint their way back, finally speeding through familiar territory until the sight of the walls in the distance fill Clarke with some kind of relief. There’s shouting, so they must have been spotted, yells of alarm, but as they’re closing in on the gate it’s Miller who spots them from his post at the top of the wall.

‘It’s Clarke and Finn, open the gate!’

They stumble into the yard, which is filled with wide-eyed teenagers, guns hanging loose from their arms. At least they were sort of prepared for an invasion?

Bellamy’s right there, a ring of red around his throat for some reason, and a shocked look on his face at their return. 

‘Hey, we heard an explosion, what happened?’

‘Murphy happened,’ he says roughly, voice hoarse. Was he _choked_?

He gives her a look that tells her to leave it for now, and she can’t follow up because Jasper’s in her arms.

‘Thank god. Where have you been? Where’s Monty?’ His eyes dart to either side of her, like she could be hiding his best friend behind her.

‘Monty’s gone?’

His face falls, but there’s no time to follow up on that either. Finn’s right. They have to leave now.

‘There’s an army of grounders unlike anything we’ve ever seen, coming for us right now. We need to pack what we can and run!’

‘Like hell we do,’ Bellamy interrupts. ‘We knew this was coming!’

‘Bell, we’re not prepared,’ Octavia protests, but he shakes his head.

‘And they’re not here yet! We still have time to get ready. Besides, where would we go? Where would we be safer than behind these walls?’

‘There’s an ocean to the East,’ Finn explains. ‘People there will help us.’

‘You saw Lincoln!’ Octavia exclaims, but Bellamy’s having none of it, much to Clarke’s dismay.

‘You expect us to trust a grounder?’

 _He did save our lives, Bellamy_ , Clarke tries to plead with him, but he looks away from her.

‘This is our home now,’ he calls louder, out to the crowd surrounding them, waiting for their leaders to give them instructions. ‘We built this from nothing with our bare hands! Our dead are buried behind that wall,’ he points to the east wall. ‘In this ground. _Our_ ground. The grounders think they can take that away. They think that because we came from the sky, we don’t belong here. But they’re yet to realise one very important fact: we are on the ground now.’ He looks directly at Clarke, brown and gold eyes burning. ‘And that means _we_ are grounders!’

‘Grounders with guns!’ A kid yells.

‘You’re damn right. I say let them come.’

Clarke has to admire Bellamy’s zeal, his utter belief that standing and fighting will win out. But as much as she wants to be on his side for this, she can’t. She saw the murder in Tristan’s eyes, the determination in Anya’s, the weapons that only her _guards_ carried. What about the warriors she didn’t see?

‘Bellamy’s right,’ she says, loud, after he looks at her. Like he’s wanting her opinion even if he must know she’s going to disagree. ‘If we leave, we may never find a place as safe as this. And god knows, in this world, we could be faced with something even worse tomorrow. But that doesn’t change the simple fact, that if we stay here, we will die tonight. So pack your things. Just take what you can carry. _Now._ ’

And although Bellamy’s speech was more inspiring, more righteous even, they listen to her. Because they’re kids, and they’re afraid, just as they should be.

She looks back to Bellamy, whose jaw is clenched with anger and frustration.

 _I’m sorry,_ she thinks to him. _But the call is made._

Everyone scatters, gathering up every useful thing they can find. Clarke’s about to head into the Dropship to find whatever medical supplies they have left when a shout catches her attention.

‘Help me!’

‘Raven!’

They rush over to her where she’s stumbling forward, unable to keep herself up without leaning heavily on the ship. At once, Clarke’s eyes are drawn to her hand, sticky with blood, pressed to a wound in her abdomen.

‘Murphy shot her,’ Jasper gasps, and Finn scoops her up, speeding into the Dropship. Clarke’s about to follow when a hand reaches out to grab her wrist.

‘Clarke, leaving here is a mistake.’

‘The decision’s been made,’ she tells Bellamy firmly, but he grimaces.

‘Crowds make bad decisions, just ask Murphy. Leaders do what they think is right,’ he begs, and she knows he means himself. But she tears her arm away, looking him in the eye before she turns to go help Raven.

 _I am_.

***

He watches as Clarke holds a hot knife to Raven’s wound, wincing at her screams. He watches Clarke’s face wobble just a bit as she hurts her friend to save her, watches the mask fall back into place. He watches as Finn grips Raven’s hand as she squeezes it hard, pain lacing her every movement.

‘I don’t understand, how did Murphy get a gun?’

‘Long story,’ Bellamy sighs, not really willing to go into the whole saga right now, not when Clarke needs to save Raven’s life and the rest of them need to prepare to fight.

‘We got lucky,’ Raven groans. ‘If Murphy had hit the fuel tank instead of me we’d all be dead.’

‘Wait, there’s rocket fuel down there? Enough to build a bomb?’

‘Enough to build a hundred bombs,’ Raven manages. ‘If we had any gunpowder left.’

Bellamy feels another surge of anger at Murphy, but manages to focus on the book Finn left that he’d picked up, the one Lincoln had given him and Clarke. The drawing is good, menacing and detailed.

‘Let’s get back to these Reapers. Maybe they’ll help us. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?’

But Clarke and Finn exchange a look.

‘Not this enemy,’ Clarke says. ‘Trust me, we saw them.’

 _Cannibals or worse. I don’t even know if they can be communicated with_ , Clarke adds to him. _It’s not an option._

Apparently nothing he suggests is an option, but the look in Clarke’s eyes tells him to drop it. Finn is more focused on Raven anyhow, and Bellamy’s heart sinks when Clarke tells them Raven certainly won’t be able to walk, and they’ll have to carry her.

‘The hell you will, I’m good to go!’

Bellamy can see the pain in Raven’s eyes goes beyond the physical, the refusal to believe she’s unable to do what needs to be done.

Clarke’s having none of it. Her silver eye glows sharply in the low light of the Dropship, and there’s no room for argument against her tone. ‘Hey. Listen to me. That bullet is still inside you. If by some miracle there’s no internal bleeding, it _might_ hold until we get somewhere safe, but you are _not_ walking there, is that clear?’

Even Raven backs down, nodding faintly. 

‘I’ll go get a stretcher,’ Finn announces, leaving to exit the room like he can’t stand to be in it.

‘Can’t run away fast enough, huh? Real brave.’ Bellamy doesn’t just mean leaving the camp, but Finn doesn’t pick up on that.

‘Dying in a fight you can’t win isn’t brave, Bellamy, it’s stupid.’

_I don’t need some asshole telling me how to save everyone._

‘Spoken like every coward who’s ever run from a fight,’ Bellamy can’t help but bite back, but Clarke’s suddenly there, in between them.

‘That’s enough, both of you. It’s time to go.’

‘What if they follow, Princess?’ He ignores the sting of hurt she feels at him bringing the nickname back, but he has to get through to her somehow. ‘It’s a hundred and twenty miles to the ocean--’

‘We’re wasting time,’ Finn interrupts. ‘If he wants to stay, he can stay.’

‘No, he can’t,’ Clarke argues, but Finn’s already left.

She turns to him now, eye glowing, not letting him shift from under her stare.

‘We can’t do this without you, Bellamy.’

_I can’t do this without you._

He grits his teeth. ‘What do you want me to say, Clarke?’ Does she want him to say that he thinks it’s a good idea for them to leave behind their home, their walls, just for some tiny chance that they’ll reach the ocean and some mythical paradise? It’s not realistic.

‘I want you to say that you’re with us,’ Clarke pleads. _That you’re with me._ ‘Those kids out there, they listen to you.’

He shakes his head. ‘They’re lining up to go. They listen to you more.’ He tries not to let the resentment show in his voice, but he doubts he gets that past Clarke.

‘I gave them an easy choice,’ she argues. ‘But five minutes ago, they were willing to _fight_ and _die_ for you. You _inspire_ them. And I’m afraid we’re going to need that again before this day is through.’

_I need you, Bellamy. Don’t let us do this without you._

She leaves before he can argue back, because she knows she’s won, and she knows that he knows it too. 

He helps Finn load up Raven onto the stretcher, ignoring the former’s annoyance at him. He gathers up his things, his gun and radio and the little affects he’s collected over their time here, and watches as the delinquents start to stream out of the gate. 

Bellamy looks up at the Dropship, towering over the trees. The tents that have sheltered them. The wall that’s kept them safe. Everything they’ve built, they’re abandoning. 

It hurts.

Clarke meets him near the campfire, understanding eyes looking up at him.

‘You did good here, Bellamy.’

‘Eighteen dead,’ he can’t help but say, remembering the night out at the graves after the blood-virus, her wistful tone at the death-count.

 _Eighty-two alive_ , she counters. _We did good._

He nods. He doesn’t have to be Raven, after all, to know it’s not actually a terrible percentage. But he knows they both wish it was more.

Bellamy grabs the bucket of water, splashes it over the fire for the last time, watching the steam rise like a white signal of surrender into the air. And then he falls into step with her as they make their way out of the gate.

Away from their home, into the unknown.

*

Bellamy is a reassuring presence at her side as they march through the woods. It’s not just because she knows that he’s probably the best alarm system they’ve got, not that anyone but she and Octavia know that. But she’s just relieved he’d agreed to come, even though he’s against the plan.

She wasn’t lying. She can’t do this without him.

And she’s proved right when everything goes to shit.

 _Are they here?_ she asks him silently yet frantically, as they all rush back behind the gate, leaving Drew’s body out there to rot. They don’t have time to drag him home.

He climbs up the fence, using his rifle for the scope, but she knows he’s concentrating on his other form of perception. 

She wonders if he knows the grounders have an almost pretty word for it.

Clarke joins him up there, catches the slight shake of his head. ‘Where are they?’ he asks. ‘Why aren’t they attacking?’

The answer comes to her with a chill.

_Because we’re doing exactly what they wanted us to do._

‘What do you mean?’

She turns down to where Finn and Octavia are waiting. 

‘We can still fight our way out if it’s just the scouts,’ Octavia says. ‘That’s what Lincoln would do.’

‘That grounder isn’t here,’ Bellamy argues. ‘We tried his plan and now Drew is dead, you want to be next?’

‘That grounder saved our lives,’ Finn cuts in. ‘I agree with Octavia, for all we know, there’s one scout out there.’

‘A scout with insanely good aim,’ Jasper points out, which Clarke privately agrees with.

‘Clarke, we can still do this!’ They’re all looking at her, Octavia and Finn and Bellamy, waiting for her decision.

‘Looking to you, Princess,’ Bellamy says firmly, all the heat gone from the nickname, unlike before. A gold and brown steady gaze. He’s deferring to her. ‘What’s it gonna be?’

Clarke turns back to the forest, casting her eye out over every tree, every rock. She doesn’t have Bellamy’s Grace, she can’t know what’s out there.

But the silence unsettles her. And something in her gut is telling her that if they leave again, it won’t just be one scout; it won’t just be one throwing star. 

She jumps down to the ground again.

‘We’re staying,’ she says, to Octavia and Finn’s dismay.

 _Looks like you got your fight,_ she adds to Bellamy, but he just nods at her, not even looking smug at getting his way. He’s just ready. 

He rouses the crowd, directing them to their posts, a born leader, issuing his instructions firmly and decisively. After he’s done, she marches up to him.

‘Alright, how the hell do we do this?’

She and Finn and Bellamy end up inside again, surrounding Bellamy’s battle table while Raven sits and watches. He goes down their list of weapons, the advantages, the disadvantages. Finn looks uncertain, but it makes sense to her, the way he’s spread out their ammo, concentrating it in areas where it’s likely they’ll be attacked.

But good strategy can only make up for so much, when they only have five hundred rounds, half of a mined field, and three grenades.

‘We’ll make them count,’ Bellamy says, and she wishes she had the confidence he did, because she’s not convinced. ‘If they make it through the main gate, we should be able to force them back.’

‘And then?’ she has to ask.

They keep discussing back and forth, Bellamy and Finn arguing of course. But Finn mentions the bomb, and Clarke’s eyes are drawn back to Bellamy’s models. The Dropship in the middle of the yard, in almost the perfect centre, a perfect walled perimeter around it.

And underneath the Dropship, leftover fuel that almost killed them all, if Murphy’s bullet had gone astray.

‘It can’t be that simple,’ she whispers, and Bellamy turns to her, frowning. ‘You said we had enough fuel to make a hundred bombs, right?’

Raven nods. ‘But we don’t have gunpowder.’

‘I don’t want to build a bomb,’ she tells Raven, watching the spark reappear in the mechanic’s dark blue eye. ‘I want to blast off.’

‘Draw them in close, fire the rockets, a ring of fire…’ She understands Clarke’s plan perfectly.

‘Barbecued grounders,’ Bellamy says, giving Clarke a nod. ‘I like it.’

‘Will it work?’ Finn asks.

‘The wiring is a mess down there,’ Raven says. ‘But if you give me enough time…’ She meets Clarke’s gaze, blazing. ‘I’ll cook ‘em real good.’

Bellamy disappears to inform everyone of the new plan and mobilise the troops.

 _Buy us time_ , she tells him before he leaves. He nods.

Raven can’t move, so she and Finn are left to follow her shouted instructions down to find the ignition system, but they’re possibly the two worst people in the camp to do so. Clarke’s smart, she knows, but she’s not an engineer like her dad had hoped. And Finn’s not much better, even having grown up with Raven.

And things get worse when Raven loses the feeling in her legs. The bullet’s in her spine, causing extensive internal bleeding in her back and upper leg. She isn’t going to last long without severe medical intervention, without supplies and skills Clarke doesn’t have.

‘We’d better do this fast then, huh?’ Raven stutters, false pep in her voice. Clarke knows how strong the other girl is, has known it since she flung herself down to Earth in a makeshift pod. But this is something else. It’s utter grit.

Finn isn’t giving up on her either, and for once, Clarke can see again what she and Raven saw in him, the determination in his eyes, the _devotedness_. He may have betrayed Raven, betrayed her, even. But he wasn’t going to let it stop him from saving them apparently.

‘I’ll go to Lincoln’s, get the coagulant, and be back, okay? I’ll be fine.’

They both watch him go, and Clarke can feel the tension in the air again. But as much as she wants to tell Raven she has no interest, now’s not the time or place.

Clarke is sent back down the hatch into the mess of wires, trying to follow Raven’s blind instructions.

‘It’s not rocket science,’ Raven finally explodes, frustrated.

‘It is rocket science, actually,’ she points out, and she at least hears Raven huff a laugh.

‘Guess we finally found something you’re not good at.’

Clarke’s not good at a lot of things. She’s not that good at relating to people, or handling things as gently as others she’s seen. She’s not good at pretending, not past a quick lie. She’s not good at ceding control, even to someone she trusts. 

She’s not good at conversations like these, where every word seems to be laced with a double meaning.

The bang of bullets both from outside and from the radio is the soundtrack to their loaded conversation. ‘I used to be picked first for everything. Earth skills, zero-G mech course. First, every time.’

Clarke wonders how Raven doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that if Raven had been the one she first met on Earth, it wouldn’t have been Finn she gravitated to, sought comfort in in those early days. 

Clarke’s met a lot of girls she thought were hot or pretty or smart or confident or determined. But she’s never met someone quite like Raven Reyes. 

But that’s something else she’s not quite the best at. Telling people how she feels. But maybe she should start trying.

‘Hey Raven,’ she calls. ‘I’d pick you first.’

There’s a silence where Clarke worries for a second that Raven’s passed out, or she’s offended.

‘’Course you would,’ the mechanic finally replies. ‘I’m awesome.’

Clarke finally finds the wire, a moment of euphoria before she realises it’s totally fried, and she has no idea how to splice it. But when Jasper calls excitedly into the radio that his and Raven’s mines worked, Raven realises that he’s their chance, and Clarke’s not going to waste it.

‘Jasper, we need you in the Dropship right now.’

‘Negative,’ Bellamy calls through. ‘We can’t give up the west woods.’

Of course he’s arguing with her, like she wouldn’t be asking Jasper to come help for any reason other than life-saving. ‘The west woods are mined, Bellamy,’ she tells him. ‘The grounders just figured that out.’

They figure out the grounder’s strategy too. Drawing their fire, like they know their ammunition is limited.

Clarke begs Jasper to run. Once they stop shooting, the grounders will abandon this strategy and start attacking. They don’t have much time left.

They have to get the ring of fire to work, or everyone would die tonight.

*

He hears the drums coming before everyone else. 

His perception must be stronger in his panic, in survival mode. Hostile presences flitter on the edge of his range, not quite close enough to register solid thoughts, but real enough he knows they’re approaching.

Bellamy hurtles through the tunnel out to where Miller and Octavia should be, but of course his sister isn’t there.

‘She left five minutes ago,’ Miller tells him. ‘She thinks she’s a damn samurai.’

He has to smile, just a little. Samurai, knights, Spartan warriors. They were all games played in their tiny apartment back on the Ark. The swords were his mother’s knitting needles, the shields the three grimy dinner plates they owned.

It’s different when it’s real. The grounders aren’t going to stop attacking when their mom snaps at them to be quiet. If they fail here tonight, they’re gone.

He senses them as they creep closer, but they keep running laterally, ghosts drawing fire, and the battle is a mess of shooting at what they can barely see until Jasper points the strategy out.

And it’s not long after that when the grounders truly come for them.

Bellamy feels the change in intent starkly, doesn’t need Miller’s shouts of ‘they’re coming’ to know what they’re about to face.

He relies on his senses heavily in the dark, aiming and shooting, aiming and shooting. But there’s so many of them, and they bound over the foxhole, one landing on him, tackling him to the ground and choking him out, pressing down on the already present bruises from Murphy.

It’s not enough to know the grounder wants to kill him, to know when the punches are coming, because Bellamy’s not fast enough or strong enough to alleviate his position.

He’s going to die.

He’s going to die until he isn’t, because there’s a distinct _Bellamy!_ in his head, and the grounder is impaled with a sword, falling off him to reveal the sight of his sister, chest heaving and eyes wide.

_Hey, big brother. Admit it, you want one._

‘Better than a knitting needle,’ he mumbles, but before she can respond, an arrow is slicing into her leg. ‘Fuck, O, you’re hit. Miller, fall back.’

He’s not risking his sister.

He heaves her up into his arms, determined to retreat. But there are grounders behind them now, and even if they’re safe behind the trees for the moment, hidden from view, it’s not going to last long.

The only saving grace is that he’ll know if they’re spotted.

The battle rages on as they hop from hiding place to hiding place, still not getting any closer to their tunnels.

And all at once, there’s a boom from up above. Similar to when the Exodus Ship had started its descent, but bigger, louder. 

‘Is that the Ark?’ Octavia wonders.

‘I think so,’ Bellamy replies, and they watch as their former home streaks down to Earth in blazes of fire. ‘Come on, we gotta keep going.’

But Octavia is growing heavier in his arms. He’s strong, but not that strong, and it’s getting increasingly harder to maneuver without being seen, without being afraid he’s going to trip over a stray root, dropping his sister to worse injury.

They’re granted another reprieve when some kind of yodel rings out through the trees, and the grounders are turning away from the camp, attacking some unknown foe. Bellamy feels the hostility shift away from him, the general intent of the grounders to kill them all halted for a second.

‘Let’s move while they’re distracted,’ he says, but Octavia looks at him, shaking her head.

‘You know we’ll never make it. Leave me. I’ll find another way.’

‘I’m not going anywhere without you,’ he replies, emotion clogging up his throat. She stares.

But they’re interrupted by a quiet voice, one he’s never heard before.

From the man he tortured.

‘Octavia!’

She was right about his power. The other man is silent, still, even as he hugs Octavia, even as he stares at Bellamy with guarded eyes.

‘You did this?’ Bellamy can’t help but ask, tilting his head to the battle waging around them between grounders.

‘With Finn,’ Lincoln says, but gets distracted by Octavia’s wound. ‘It’s deep,’ he says gravely. He glances around them, then places his eyes on Bellamy. ‘I can help her, but she has to come with me now.’

Bellamy’s not sure what makes him believe the grounder he’s hated for so long, but the way he’s looking at Octavia is protective, concerned. And his abilities might make his thoughts silent to Bellamy’s, but he can still tell that the emotion is genuine.

So he nods. ‘Go.’ He turns to Octavia, who’s struggling, still trying to get back up. ‘Let him help.’

_Bellamy, no. I have to see this through._

‘You can’t walk and I can’t get you back to the Dropship,’ he replies, realising a little late that their one-sided conversation is probably revealing. But nothing matters when it’s his sister in danger, and if this grounder can help her survive, there’s no way he’s saying no.

‘He’s right. This fight is over for you,’ Lincoln tells her.

 _It’s not fair,_ she begs him. _I can’t leave you alone._

‘O,’ he says. ‘You have to go. Listen to me. I told you my life ended the day you were born. The truth is, it didn’t start until then.’

_Bellamy…_

‘Go with him. I need you to live. Besides,’ he gives her what smile he can muster. ‘I got this.’

Octavia throws her arms around him, shuddering, but repeating her few words in his mind.

_I love you, big brother._

He doesn’t let himself break. ‘I love you, too. May we meet again.’

‘May we meet again,’ she says, the first words she’s said out loud in front of Lincoln.

_And we will. I’m holding you to that, Bellamy._

They heave her up into Lincoln’s arms, the grounder much bigger than him, Octavia settling into them as easily as she can with her leg.

‘Keep her safe,’ he tells the grounder, and to his surprise, he finally senses something from among the usually stifling silence, as if Lincoln’s let one single window open, to let his few choice words out.

_I will, Bellamy. You’re a good brother. Now go help your people._

And then they’re gone, disappearing with silent steps into the forest.

Alone, it’s easier to filter through the trees to one of their tunnels, knowing where the gazes of every grounder around him is falling, knowing if they spot him, he’ll just have to sprint for it.

Miraculously, he’s not seen. But the distraction of what he thinks must have been the Reapers has been defeated, and in his slow journey to the tunnel opening, the grounders regain their focus in hammering down the walls, and have breached it just as he emerges into the yard.

_Bellamy!_

He spots them outside the door of the Dropship, sheltering behind the makeshift sandbag walls. Clarke and Finn. There’s about five grounders between them though, including a tall, murderous looking one that sets his eyes on Bellamy.

_He’s next._

Clarke’s thoughts interrupt the grounders.

_Bellamy, come on! The ring of fire is ready, hurry!_

Bellamy grabs the nearest gun, tries to shoot it in the grounder’s face as he stalks towards him, but the bullet is a dud. He dodges the next few swings, because the guy’s slow and obvious with each move, especially to Bellamy, but there’s only so many times he can. An uppercut slams him backward, another punch near breaking his jaw.

_He’s killing him!_

To Bellamy’s surprise, he feels Finn slide out from behind the shelter, Clarke yelling after him, and together they try to force back the grounder. But even two of them isn’t enough, not when there’s even more grounders streaming in through the gates, swords hungry.

His senses only help up to a point. There’s too many, the Dropship too far away.

_You’re never going to make it._

She’s right, he knows. If they try and fight their way through, they’ll die. But what could they do instead?

He watches as Miller drags Clarke back into the Dropship, letting off a last few shots before disappearing behind the tarp himself.

_Bellamy? Bellamy, if you’re still alive, if you can hear this. Run. I’m closing the door. I have to save everyone else, I’m sorry._

_Run now, Jasper’s going to press the button as soon as he can. Run, Bellamy. Run._

He wishes he could send his own message back, tell her he doesn’t blame her, tell her she’s doing the right thing. But there’s no time. He grabs Finn by the shoulder, ducks under the next grounder’s swing, and pulls him towards the tunnels.

‘Come on,’ he manages to shout. ‘They’re going to set it off.’

With a combination of his gifts and utter determination, they make it to the tunnels, sliding inside and scrambling as fast they can through the tight space. Bellamy knows if they don’t make it far enough away, they’ll be flamed, condemned to a painful, melting death.

Just as they’re getting to the other side, he hears a rumbling, and then a burst of flame is searing his back, crawling up his spine to his hair. Everything is hot, burning, and his ears lose all sound, his eyes all sight.

All he can feel is fire, and he passes out in the bushes on the other side of the wall.

*

Clarke watches the hundred fall, one by one.

The grounders stream in through the gate, only held back by the grenades they throw for a few precious seconds. But it’s enough time for her to yell for them all to get inside, and she only hopes enough of them hear her through the cacophony of bloodshed and gunshots and war cries.

Bellamy’s not back though, and while her heart jumps when she finally sees him emerge from the tunnel opposite the ship, it sinks when she realises just how many grounders are between him and safety.

Including Tristan.

She begs him to run, find his way back, but there’s too many of them, Tristan too strong an opponent for Bellamy, and she’s screaming herself hoarse, but it’s no use, even as Finn goes to help him.

‘Clarke, you can’t save everyone, let’s go,’ Miller yells into her ear, tugging her back into the ship, and she knows he’s right, but why can’t she save _them_?

There’s one thing she can give to him, one chance that she hopes he’ll take, one chance that she hopes will work

 _Run,_ she directs to Bellamy in her head. _Save yourself and run. We’re closing the doors. I have to save everyone else. I’m sorry._

She pulls up the lever with tears in her eyes, the rest of the hundred, the ones she could save, watching her with wide-eyes.

_Run, Bellamy. Run. Run!_

But just as she’s starting towards Jasper, the tarp ripples behind them, just as the door slams shut with a hiss, and for one hopeful second, she thinks Bellamy and Finn might have made a run for it, jumped to safety at the last second.

It’s Anya that rips open the drapes, though, murder in her eyes as the ship rocks with the force of the outside army flinging themselves to get inside.

‘Jasper, now!’

Of course, it doesn’t work. Yet as Jasper scrambles to fix whatever’s broken, their last chance at survival, Clarke has more pressing issues.

Anya has her swords drawn, hissing like a cat ready to attack, but she’s obviously overwhelmed in numbers, no matter how good a warrior she is.

But as the crowd descends on her, Clarke finds herself fighting through them, flinging them back. It’s not right. The battle, for now, is over. Killing Anya isn’t the right thing to do.

‘We are _not_ grounders,’ she finally commands, halting everyone in their tracks. No matter what Bellamy said about them belonging to the Earth, this wasn’t who they were. They didn’t kill in cold blood, like the grounders. They didn’t ignore all reason and morality.

They _weren’t_ grounders.

And then, with a lurch, and no warning, Jasper plunges wires into something he’s conjured up and the Dropship vibrates like it hasn’t since their landing, the floor heating up as the rockets fire. They _rise_. Clarke can only imagine the destruction outside their metal walls from the flames.

Just as quickly, the burning cedes, their ship lands with a bone-jolting thunk, and it’s over.

Clarke’s killed them all, including Bellamy and Finn, if her warnings didn’t get through, if they hadn’t managed to escape in time.

They bind Anya’s wrists together. Clarke mutters an apology for the beatings, but Anya just spits in her face, and Miller snarls, pushing her away.

‘It’s fine,’ she says. She’s not a grounder. She’s not looking for revenge.

They wait a few hours, just in case. Clarke tells everyone to sleep, but no one does, and she can’t expect them to when she can’t, either. She checks on Raven, still passed out, but alive. The coagulant slowed down the bleeding, but if they don’t find a way to help her in the morning, Clarke knows there won’t be many hours left for her.

Finally, though, she can’t put it off any longer. Clarke does a mental count of who they have left. Forty-eight, including Raven.

Less than half.

‘Is it safe to go out now?’ asks Harper, tentative, and Clarke swallows.

‘Only one way to find out.’

She lifts the lever again, and the door creaks open.

But instead of lush greenery, fresh air, the touch of sunlight to skin, like their first time, it’s the opposite. It’s grey and ash and black and bones and death.

Clarke walks forward as if in a trance, unable to count the skulls and bones left, the charred swords and burnt-out husks of bodies.

She did this. It was her idea, on her command. A silver axe glints in the sunlight, and she wonders if it’s the sign she’s been looking for. 

Silver eye, silver power, silver death. Maybe, she thinks numbly, her Grace is just that.

She doesn’t have long to ponder it, however. The next second, a canister is landing at her feet, red smoke pouring from it, and she has time to register fearful words from Anya, a masked face looming over her, and green laser light blinding her eyes before consciousness leaves her.

...

Everything is white. 

Clarke’s not sure she’s seen the colour (the shade?) properly like this before. The Ark was all metal and grey, the Earth all green canopies and blue skies, with the occasional wispy cloud.

This is hospital white, like she’s seen in old-Earth films.

And the theory seems to hold up, when she realises there’s a cannula in her arm. She rips it out immediately. She’s not sick.

The floor is as cold as the decor, also a stark, sterile white.

In fact, the only colour in the entire room is the small painting on the wall. Blue and yellow swirls. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, brighter than the version in her faded textbooks on the Ark.

She’s already scared when she reaches the door, and her heart drops again when she sees _Monty_ in the opposite window. Raven had told her he’d been taken by grounders. But wherever this is, it isn’t with them. This place is modern, but in a way that makes her skin crawl.

And then she sees it. The sign opposite her window, and she sees Monty follow her gaze, unable to read the words that shock her down to her core.

_MOUNT WEATHER QUARANTINE WARD_

Oh, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there we go! feel free to yell at me about how chapters aren’t 40k long, that’s the size of a novella, millipop. Yes, yes, I know. All my friends outside this fandom who know I’m writing this fic think I’m crazy but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. I hope you enjoyed more of the Graceling elements in this chapter :)
> 
> N.B.  
> For the scene with Anya and Tristan speaking Trig, the language didn’t actually exist for the show production in season 1, but I decided to include it both for continuity reasons and nerd reasons. I was actually a linguistics major so I have MANY opinions about the language itself (VERY COOL) and how it’s explained in the show (NOT SO COOL). ((come talk to me about it anytime I’m always ready to ramble about generational language change and linguistics in general)).  
> But I had way too much fun translating my own sentences (the dialogue is adapted from the show but slightly different) so it’s in there (I apologise for any mistakes, I’m not an expert translator despite having ling training, go figure). I haven’t included translations here because Clarke doesn’t actually understand it herself, but if you would like me to include them I’m happy to edit them in here or clarify them in comments.
> 
> Sorry for the long notes to go with the long chapter, yikes. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay fighting for the important things in our world and society, and stand up to bigotry and systemic racism and violence when you can. BLM, ACAB.
> 
> Hmu on twitter and tumblr


	4. the girl with red hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the 48 -> spacewalker. Clarke encounters a new threat, Bellamy shows his growth, and reunion is bittersweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoy this chapter! it's been a blast to write because season 2 really is pretty great, and I've missed these guys being the agents of their own stories. sorry what? ha ha ha. ha.  
> hope you guys are well and healthy, and i hope you enjoy.

gloves on tight against her skin  
glasses on, let this begin.  
this girl is ready for some sin.

white coat that reflects the light  
eyes so clear and far too bright.  
this girl is ready, fight or flight.

that's how it began for  
the girl with red hands.

_hands_ \- cub sport

  
  


* * *

The moment she sees Monty gone, the door to his room open, the figure in the suit bending over his stark white, empty bed, Clarke knows what she has to do.

The smashed window slices open her wrist, but it’s worth it for the shard-of-glass weapon it gives her, and she refuses to feel bad as she holds it to the blubbering girl’s throat, directing her to the lifts.

Clarke doesn’t care if she ‘doesn’t understand’, like the girl is telling her. These people know her name, and they took Monty somewhere, and something about everything she’s seeing in this underground bunker (that they’re surely in) is twisting her stomach in knots.

And then she’s shocked by the sight of _people_. Civilised, dining people, in some sort of room that reminds her of the Ark’s cafeteria, except that it’s homey, warm, with stone walls instead of metal, flags and art hanging from the ceiling and brick archways.

Clarke’s so stunned she barely fights the guards that lead her away and restrain her to a bed in a medical ward. 

There, she collects her thoughts, lists the anomalies. Civilisation. English. Medical technology. She pulls at the bands. They're too tight for her slip out of, although she tries.

Then an old man enters. White hair, wrinkled skin, but he’s not stooped. No, he stands tall in regal, if old, clothing, and one of the guards calls him Mr President.

And he’s a Graceling. One eye is an icy blue, perhaps a shade or two lighter than her father’s (and her own). The other is white, a disconcerting colour when contrasted between a black pupil and the usual white of the eye.

‘President Dante Wallace,’ he introduces himself, holding out an oil-paint stained hand. He’s already ordered her restraints removed, and it takes all of Clarke’s will to make herself reach out and shake the hand, instead of slapping it away. After all, there are too many people, and apparently he's the President. He catches her looking at the green splotches on his fingers, and he smiles genially. ‘Yes, it’s oil-paint. I’m an artist. Another thing we have in common, hmm?’

Clarke eyes him. He has all the appearance and manner of a kind, benevolent old man. But she’s sure that's not quite the truth. ‘How do you know I’m an artist?’

‘Your people told me. I’m afraid you might not be as good as me, though,’ he chuckles, closing his white eye and tapping the eyelid. ‘Unless that silver eye of yours gave you the gift of painting as well.’

She has to lift an eyebrow at that. It seems so _tame._ ‘That’s your Grace?’

‘Is that what you call it? An interesting term. And yes, you’d be right about that, Clarke. Surprised?’

Clarke worries her lip. ‘It’s not what we call it. It’s what the grounders call it.’ There’s a flicker of something in his eyes, but she’s almost convinced she imagines it. ‘We don’t call it anything.’

‘Neither do we. My people and yours are the same in many aspects, I believe. Especially their leaders. Odd eyes, and artists.’ Clarke’s stony reaction seems to amuse him. ‘Come now, Clarke. I’m very sorry we haven’t had the most auspicious start. But you are the leader of your people, and so am I. I’m sure that together we can work out any issues you might have. And once you get dressed, I’ll bring you them.’

He brings in the girl she’d held hostage, Maya, who stares at her resentfully with dark eyes, but says she isn’t pressing charges. Whatever that means.

And then he brings her the most indulgent closet she’s ever seen, filled with pearls and gaudy tops, and Clarke snorts to herself, left behind in the ward, because this Dante Wallace was crazy if he thought she was going to dress herself like that.

She picks the most practical clothes she can, and pauses over the shoes. Without even thinking, her hand reaches for the black strappy one, and she breaks off the heel. Improvised weapon. Bellamy would be proud.

The President meets her outside. She’s not sure what it is about his stare gives her the creeps. It has to be something else, other than the strangeness of the white. She’s never been creeped out by Bellamy’s or Raven’s or even Lincoln’s. Just his.

She tries not to seem too affected, taking in his information about the radiation. But Ii rattles her that they could have been surviving down on Earth for all this time, with no adverse side effects. Solar radiation. How did the Ark scientists miss that? 

Of course, he makes her hand over the heel before the elevator rumbles off. The glint in his eye tells her he’s just that little bit smug about it. But what it tells her is that there’s nowhere in this Mountain she’s truly alone, not being watched. 

This isn’t salvation.

Monty’s the first to run to her, when she enters the room with the forty-seven other kids, and she hugs him back ferociously. She’d been so worried about him, thinking the grounders had taken him, and then the mysterious suits, but it turns out he’s just fine, down here in this cosy dining area wearing a polo shirt. It’s almost a little unnerving.

Jasper's here too. His hair is tamed, no more blood on his shirt. He isn’t wearing his goggles.

It feels wrong.

‘Bellamy and Finn?’ she asks, looking between them, and she knows the answer as soon as their faces drop.

‘They didn’t make it, Clarke,’ Jasper says softly, and at that moment the stubbornness sets back in. No. She won’t believe it. Bellamy had to have received her message. She has to trust that he listened and they ran and they made it. That they weren’t among the burnt skulls littering the remains of their camp.

‘We don’t know that,’ she tells Jasper. There’s doubt in his eyes, and she understands it. Dante had promised her more patrols would be sent out, to look for them or any people from the Ark, but there was something in his voice that told her he didn’t believe he’d be telling her any good news. 

To Clarke, his made-up mind means he’s either not doing enough or he’s hiding something.

When she receives the map with no exits, it makes her even more sure. There’s a wrongness to this place that thrums through her bones, something deep in her gut, her heart, telling her that it’s all too good to be true.

They’re all in danger here; she knows it. She just can’t prove it.

It’s easy to steal Maya’s key-card while she isn’t watching. It’s easy to run through the corridors, knowing people are chasing her, knowing that it means they aren’t letting her _leave_. For her safety. What bullshit.

She’s so close to getting outside, turning the wheel to the containment door, when Jasper and Maya catch her.

‘Because of you, we’re all safe here,’ Jasper begs her. ‘Don’t ruin it now.’

‘Not all of us,’ she says, heart in her throat. Not Bellamy and Raven and Finn. Not the thirty-two other kids who hadn’t made it inside in time, some of them slaughtered in front of her own eyes.

She lets the lever go, though. Something about the desperation in Maya’s eyes, the pleading in Jasper’s voice, breaks her resolve. Clarke might be a killer, but she’s not a murderer. 

At least, she tells herself she isn’t. It’s kind of hard to believe, with how many times now she’s killed on purpose, no matter what the situation had forced her to do..

She lets them take her, lets them dress her down for endangering them all, listening with only half an ear, because it’s still bullshit. They got them in here somehow. There had to be a way out for her that didn’t flood the bunker with radiation.

Dante invites her to his office, shows her his painting of the outside, his one memory. He’s good, really good. The painting seems alive on the canvas, each brushstroke of green an ode to the outside the President hasn't seen since that day. It’s obvious he’s not lying about what his gift is. It's almost - _almost -_ a window to the outside, seemingly impossible in the stuffy bunker. It's what her fingers itch to be able to paint, if she had the time or materials.

But she doesn’t like Dante or want to heed his advice, no matter how many soft words he says. He tells her to relax. To stop fighting.

She has no idea how to do that.

So Clarke takes the art supplies he gives her and works on her map. The delinquents are happy around her in their dorm, chattering and chilling out like they never have before, and she wants so badly for it to be real, for it to be good for them.

But she’s just not convinced.

She keeps drawing.

*

When Bellamy wakes up, halfway hidden in the scrub outside the walls, there’s a grounder standing over him, trying to decide whether he’s dead or not.

He lies very still, not even daring to breathe. It doesn’t work. The grounder decides he’s alive, and ripe for the killing.

But because Bellamy knows that he’s busted the second the grounder makes the choice, he has the reflexes to roll away from the grounder’s downward sword swing. In a matter of seconds, he scrambles up, grabs a spear from a corpse next to him, and sprints into the forest, the grounder yelling and chasing him.

He only stops when he doesn’t feel the angry, murderous presence behind him.

But the danger’s far from over.

He runs into Monroe and Sterling, both safe, thankfully, but both lying when they say they went to get help from the Ark in the middle of the battle. They ran away, scared.

Yet he can’t bring himself to blame them.

They watch as another grounder, a huge one with spikes decorating every inch of his clothes, drags Finn and Seth along by their bound hands. Seth falls. The grounder slits his throat. The number in Bellamy’s head, not quite exact or known right now, goes down by one anyway.

He tries to rouse Monroe and Sterling to attack, even sensing their reluctance. They don’t want to, and they choke at the last second. He goes anyway. He’s thrown to the ground and punched for his efforts, each blow impacting his body harder, and for yet another moment on Earth, he thinks he’s about to die.

Then a bullet whisks over his head, striking the grounder between the eyes.

People from the Ark, he realises through the fog of pain, as they filter towards them through the trees.

‘We’re here now,’ says Marcus Kane. Bellamy recognises him from the council. The one who’d charged his mother, sentenced her to death. He exchanges a look with Finn, a gesture that feels foreign to him. But apparently whatever grudge lies between them is on pause. They’ve got something else to work against.

 _Bellamy’s an asshole, but he’s not as bad as these guys_.

He’s just glad someone else isn’t quite as comforted by the Ark’s presence.

A woman checks his injuries over, dark blonde hair in a strands-pulled-back princess style he strongly associates with Clarke. With a jolt, he realises there’s a reason for that. Of course, she's a doctor. This must be Abby Griffin. And though she and Clarke have different eyes, different features, there’s something in their manner that’s very similar.

Clarke will be so relieved to know her mother isn’t dead.

Bellamy and Finn lead them to the Dropship camp. Kane keeps trying to walk ahead of them, but goes in the wrong direction each time. It’s insufferable, and Bellamy has to keep himself from snapping at the guy. It’s clear he wouldn't take kindly to the disrespect.

He sure hasn’t missed Ark society.

They get to the outskirts, and Bellamy freezes at the sight of the walls. 

‘It’s too quiet,’ he murmurs to Finn, because he can’t tell him the other, real news. 

The news that there are only two souls alive within the perimeter of their camp, both in the Dropship. As much as he stretches his gift out to sense others, there’s nothing. No one.

He and Finn escape to their tunnels with relative ease, the guards shouting after them, but he can’t bring himself to care. He has to figure out what _happened_. Did the rocket-fire burn them all up? Did the metal not protect them?

As he gets closer to the Dropship, his senses become clearer. One of them is _Raven_. Still alive, somehow, but faltering. 

The other one is less welcome, and as soon as he comes stumbling out, he stares at Bellamy, wide-eyed.

_Oh fuck, he’s still alive._

Bellamy loses his head.

‘You piece of shit,’ he hears himself yelling hoarsely, tackling Murphy down into the ashy dirt and punching with wild abandon. Each hit is for something different. One for Charlotte, one for Connor and Myles, one for himself, one for Raven. One, two, three, four for his betrayal of the entire camp.

He’s so lost in his anger that he doesn’t notice, until too late, Kane ordering the shock-baton. He lurches back, pain firing up his spine. 

Finn argues in his favour, but Kane is looking at him, eyes glittering.

_The boy who shot Jaha. Still violent. Still a danger to us all._

Bellamy lets himself be cuffed, all the energy leaving him. So much for being pardoned. The Ark has come down, his people are gone, and there’s nothing he can do.

He’s pulled out of the camp, hands bound, trying to ignore the blood from his injuries dripping down into his eyes. Clarke’s mother, after getting Raven squared away, is ignoring all of them in favour of scratching something into the side of the Dropship.

CLARKE

PLEASE COME HOME

22KM SOUTH/SW

\- MOM

When she’s finished, she turns around and clocks him staring.

_Did he know my daughter well?_

He can’t answer her without revealing anything, but he wants to say yes. He wants to tell her that Clarke had saved him, saved them all. That he and Clarke had been leaders together, that by the end, they _got_ each other. That he liked her daughter, and could help find her, if only he was free right now.

Instead, he’s led as a prisoner through the forest to the crashed Alpha Station, and left in a room to rot.

***

"I protected you in **inclement weather**. why will you have nothing to do with me?"

— victor hugo, les misérables

  
  


Clarke tries to let it go. She really does.

Miller appears, out of surgery for his stab wounds, and she feels strangely unneeded. The inadequate healer, not a true doctor like her mom, nor someone Graced with those skills. Useless.

Like Jasper with his goggles, Miller looks strangely naked without his beanie, although he has grown a neat beard.

‘Heard you’re making friends,’ he remarks to her, and she purses her lips a little. Seems like Maya has been talking about her. She’s not so surprised by Miller passing judgement; he was that quiet-but-snarky sort, but it stings a little anyway. She’s just trying to protect them, like always.

When the sirens sound, all her paranoia floods back. She races her way into medical, sees the corpse as it's being laid on the table. It feels like vindication, because it’s a bullet wound, no doubt in her mind. She might not be the healer everyone wants her to be, but she knows _that_ much.

And then there’s the man with the severe radiation burns, sores and blisters covering every inch of his skin. Completely unrecoverable. 

Why was he being led into medical? Surely trying to save a lost cause was wasting resources in a place like this.

It’s all just so suspicious to her. She insists on them showing her the wound. She insists on them proving to her that she’s just being paranoid. She just can’t _shake_ it, the feeling of wrongness.

But it looks like an arrow wound now, completely unlike what she knows she saw. She goes back to the dorm with tears in her eyes and screws up her map. She's starting to think she’s going crazy, and Jasper even tells her so.

And then she sees the should-be-dead burned man, Langston, walking through the dining hall. There's only minimal radiation burns on his showing skin, like he’s recovered overnight.

It’s impossible. He should be dead.

Clarke knows what she has to do, even if it hurts, even if she knows it’ll make her seem even crazier. So what if they think she’s losing it? Maybe she is. Only patients are allowed in Medical, and this is how she gets there.

She has to know the truth.

It hurts like a motherfucking bitch, ripping her wrist’s stitches open, but it’s all worth it when she’s left alone in the ward, just her and Langston. He’s unconscious and hooked up to tubing. Tubing carrying blood into a machine, into more tubes, and the tubes are leading _out_ of the room. 

Clarke might not be her mother, but she’s not fucking stupid. And she’s not crazy either, it turns out.

The bodies are strung up upside down, bandages covering other wounds on their bodies. The tattoos tell her all she needs to know about who these poor souls are.

And when she walks, haltingly, down between the cages, dodging the desperate hands reaching out to her, she catches sight of familiar, honey-coloured hair.

Her enemy stares back at her, doleful and resentful. 

‘Anya?’ she whispers, kneeling down to look the grounder in the eye.

The feeling in her chest thrums. She was right, all along. This had never been a rescue. The Mountain had kidnapped them, like they had with all these grounders.

Mount Weather’s a danger to them all.

*

Bellamy fucking hates Marcus Kane.

He hates the smarmy attitude, the condescension, the belief that if Bellamy just _tells_ him about the grounders, he’ll know all he needs to know to fight them, know how to traverse the forest they’ve been living in for _weeks_.

He doesn’t care that Kane thinks he’s an idiot or a danger or a liability. He cares that they’re running out of time to go after the others. That Kane sending the _guard_ , the loud, rigid, unadaptable guard, will alert the grounders to their presence long before they arrive to save their people, wherever they are.

‘They have spears, knives, bow and arrows, swords,’ he lists to Kane for the fifth time. ‘Pretty much all non-firearm, non-tech weapon you can think of. I saw one use their own teeth.’

‘You had guns.’

‘That leveled the playing field, yes,’ Bellamy sighs. ‘But we had kids, not soldiers. The grounders have hundreds of trained warriors. Maybe thousands. They train from when they’re children. And we just didn’t have enough ammo.’

‘The ammunition from the supply depot, yes?’

Of-fucking-course he doesn’t focus on the other reasons Bellamy gives.

‘Yes.’

‘There _were_ more bullets there. Two more barrels of rifles and another of ammunition,' he scoffs. 'You didn’t look hard enough.’

Kane doesn’t think anything specific about Bellamy, no disparaging sentence that clearly outlines his thoughts. No, Bellamy’s not worth that. He just receives the overwhelming judgement, the disgust, emanating from the man who sentenced his mother.

He wasn’t there, Bellamy tries to tell himself. He didn’t know what it was like. 

Yet, still, he does have the literal power to sense shit like that. How did he miss it? Too distracted tripping on hallucinogenic nuts, teaching Clarke to shoot, and defending himself from an assassin, he supposes. 

His pity party is interrupted when a guard brings Murphy into the room they’re using as a holding cell. Bellamy only subtly flexes his fingers, but they cable tie him to the other side of the room anyway. They’re probably right to. Bellamy still wants to beat the shit out of that traitor.

There's a thick silence after Kane leaves. Resentful from Bellamy, quiet from Murphy. If the guy has any thoughts about sitting in a cell with him, it’s not at the forefront.

Until an hour in and they start hearing screams. 

Bellamy knows straight away that they’re Raven’s. He can’t know what’s happening to her, not without her thinking of him, but he can guess. She had been in bad shape. Another thing to thank Murphy for.

‘Almost as bad as the screams in the prison camp where they tortured me for three days,’ Murphy drawls.

‘Where you gave up all the information they used to attack us,’ Bellamy growls back.

Murphy just scoffs. 

_He thinks he’s so much better than me._

‘Because you’d stay silent, even as they’re ripping your fingernails off?’ he scathes out loud, and Bellamy clenches his jaw.

‘Damn straight,’ he says.

Murphy just rolls his eyes. 

‘Yeah, well, let me know how that goes for you next time you’re banished, captured, and trussed up in the company of three bloodthirsty grounders determined to inflict so much pain on you that they don’t care if you die not giving up the information.’

Bellamy’s jaw works. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have caused a little girl to jump off a cliff. That’s why we banished you.’

‘She was the reason you all _hanged_ me--’

‘No, Murphy,they hanged you because you treated them like shit. Pissing on them, grinding their faces into dirt. Them thinking you killed Wells was just their excuse to retaliate. It wasn’t right. I should have stopped it. But don’t act like you’re innocent.’

He’s blessedly silent, after that.

It’s hours later that Finn shows up with the bolt cutters.

‘About time,’ Bellamy grumbles, and Finn rolls his eyes.

‘We’re going to get our people back.’

‘No shit.’ He takes the cutters from Finn and goes to cut Murphy free. Finn looks at him like he’s crazy. _Does_ think he’s crazy.

‘We’re bringing _him_?’

‘He knows where the prison camp is. Let’s go.’

It shouldn’t surprise him, who the people are that meet them at the treeline outside of the camp: Abby Griffin and a man who looks so much like his son that it doesn’t surprise Bellamy in the slightest that he asks Bellamy to look for Nathan Miller.

‘Bring them home,’ Abby says, serious.

He nods at her.

_If anyone’s bringing home Clarke, it’s him and Finn._

Someone must have filled her in, about their particular relationships with Clarke. He’s being sent because she thinks he cares.

He can’t say he disagrees. 

Bellamy leads the way into the forest, Finn, Sterling, Monroe, and Murphy following in his wake. The dream team, he can’t help but think to himself, sighing as Sterling trips over a root. 

But it's all they have. 

It's time to get their people back.

*******

Anya looks at her with wide eyes when Clarke levers open the lock on her cage, as if she can’t believe she’s helping her.

She does admit, it’s a little strange, what she's doing. Anya wanted to slice her head off just a few days ago, and Clarke burnt her army to a crisp.

But she _knows_ Anya, has had conversations with her, kind of _likes_ her, despite herself. And whatever the reason for the grudge Clarke has against the grounders, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on inside the Mountain.

They’re using the grounder’s blood to metabolise radiation. It’s obvious, now that she’s seen this horrifying room. And what had Dante said? That Clarke and her people's blood was three times more efficient?

It’s only a matter of time before the hundred (the forty-eight, she reminds herself) are hanging by their ankles from these shackles, tubes leeching their blood from their bodies. She has to get out of here, find the Ark, and come back for them. What with the cameras in the ward, it’s only a matter of time before they know what she’s found, and she doesn’t suppose she’ll be welcomed back in with open arms now that she knows the dark secret behind this supposed utopia.

Before she can formulate much of a plan, however, the door from the medical ward swings open again. Clarke pushes Anya back into the cage and joins her, crouching and holding her breath as Dr Tsing traipses along the stacks of grounder prisoners.

Clarke’s not sure whether it’s luck, or if the other grounders know she’s their only hope of getting out of here, but they reach out with more gusto, scaring Tsing into exiting quickly. This was the only opportunity. She pulls Anya out after her, sorry for leaving the others behind. But knowing what she does about their enemy, she knows just a couple of them will be their best chance.

Instinct leads her to the metal door to the side, although she doubts her gut for a second when she and Anya are flung down the chute. It's the tunnels, she realises, when they land on human flesh. The bodies in the mine carts. They were from Mount Weather.

And the Reapers are here too. 

They’re two puzzle pieces starting to connect, but she doesn’t have time to dwell on it, not when she and Anya have to hurl themselves back into the putrid cart, have bodies hauled on top of them, and stay silent.

It’s the most horrifying experience of her life, and she’s experienced a few horrifying things in her few weeks so far on Earth.

Somehow, they escape, pulling the spare clothes on and running for their lives, although not before Anya puts a still alive, exsanguinated body out of their misery, snapping their neck.

‘ _Yu gonplei ste odon_ ,’ she whispers.

But the tunnels are never-ending, and eventually she and Anya have to stop, the grounder still wobbly on her feet due to blood loss and probably a lack of food.

‘This place is a maze,’ Clarke swears. ‘We have to find a way out of here.’

‘There is no “we”,’ Anya spits back. ‘I make my way, you make yours.’

‘No,’ Clarke tries to argue. ‘Our best chance of survival is together.’ She looks back at one of the tunnels, wondering if they’ve already gone down it. And when she looks back, the grounder is gone.

She swears again. Anya is her best chance of escaping, but she's also weak. If she runs into Reapers or the guards from the Mountain, it’s a slim chance for her. Why can’t she see that?

Clarke picks a direction and runs, hoping that whichever way it is, it’s not leading her to death. She even succeeds for a little, the terrain below her showing signs of leaves and dirt, meaning she _must_ be getting near an exit.

That’s when the Reapers turn up again.

They surround her, stalking her like predators and prey, which she supposes is true in more ways than one. They’re cannibals, and she’s a food source. There’s too many for her to try and fight this time. The firelight reflects off their wild eyes as they close in, and Clarke realises something. All of them are odd.

The Reaper closest to her has one purple, one green. The one behind him, brown and red. One off to the left, just barely visible in the low light, blue and yellow.

They’re all _Gracelings_.

No time to dwell on that either, though. An ear-splitting ringing sound interrupts them all, causing the Reapers to bend down, faces contorted in pain, hands slapped on their ears. Two suited guards in masks are behind them, with devices held up.

‘Clarke Griffin, you’re coming with us.’

Better than death by Reaper, she supposes. But still not ideal.

They lead her back through the tunnels, only ripping off the rag stuffed in her mouth when they’re at some sort of containment door.

‘You can’t lie to me anymore. I’ve seen everything.’

‘That’s why you’re going into the harvest chamber,’ one sneers.

Well fuck. Maybe death by Reaper _would_ be preferable. She starts to struggle, elbowing her captor in the ribs. He yelps in pain, and she’s turning around to kick him when a yell rings out, another figure entering the fray.

‘I found a way out!’

Anya.

Together they fight the mountain men. Clarke’s hand rips off one of their masks without her thinking, and when he screams in agony, she shouts the instruction to the grounder who’s for some reason helping her. The men both sink to the floor, dead, seconds later.

How many is that, she wonders? Her third, she’s pretty sure, after Atom and the grounder in the hut and the Reaper from the tunnels with Finn. Plus however many she burnt in the ring of fire. And Charlotte, kind of. Dax? Bellamy and Finn, possibly. Wells. Her dad. Raven, probably.

Anya interrupts her spiral. ‘We have to go. Now.’

The door starts to open again, and Clarke swallows back her reservations and runs after the grounder.

Anya leads her through three different intersections before they reach--

‘Holy fuck.’

It’s a huge waterfall. The dam, Clarke realises after a loud second of not being able to hear even her thoughts over the thundering crash of water.

‘This is your way out?’

‘Die here, or come with me, your choice,’ Anya shouts. And before she can protest, the woman leaps over the edge, just as guards round the corner.

‘Clarke Griffin, you must come with us now.’

Two options. Death in the harvest chamber, being drained of her blood little by little, knowing her friends might join her soon. Or probable death leaping off a cliff into cascading water.

She puts her hands up. She steps towards the masked men, shuts her eyes tight. And then she turns around and runs off the edge.

The drop is too long, is all she can think. Her body will crack on impact, her spine breaking, her bones crushing, her skin reddening with the slam of the water tension against--

Clarke crashes into the water and everything goes black.

For a moment.

Water is rushing into her lungs. Her vision is spotty. Swim, something tells her. So she does.

Her arms propel her to the surface somehow, air burning her lungs with sweet relief.

But she’s still being swept along by the heavy current, and whatever survival instinct allowed her to swim moments before is gone. She’s pulled by the current until a hand grabs her wrist, dragging her to the shore, beaching her on the pebbles.

Clarke coughs up more water, lungs burning, and looks to see Anya sitting beside her, calm as anything.

‘Impressive you survived that, Graceling,’ she says. Clarke coughs again.

‘Thanks for dragging me out.’

Anya purses her lips. ‘I didn’t do it for you. You killed three hundred of my warriors. I can’t show my face without a prize.’

And with that, out of nowhere, she knocks a stone into Clarke’s temple, disorienting her, and binds her arms in front of her with rags ripped from Clarke’s clothes, pulling her to her feet.

‘You’re coming with me.’

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, comes the words, unbidden, to Clarke’s mind. A saying from old-Earth, that her father used to love.

She’s never understood quite how apt it is, until now.

*

They follow Murphy further and further into the forest.

Bellamy monitors him carefully, determined to catch Murphy leading them into a trap before it happens, if that’s his goal. It doesn’t seem to be, not yet, but Bellamy’s not ruling anything out.

He’s also scanning the forest for any sign of other humans, grounders or not. He wishes his range could spread further, to wherever their people are. If they’re not dead, that is. But why would they take the bodies, if they wanted to slaughter them? Why not just leave them as a message?

No, Bellamy has to believe they’re still out there.

Finally, after hours, Murphy gestures for them to be quiet. Through the trees, Bellamy spots a twisted metal gate, with more grounder warriors standing guard, traipsing around a yard.

He squints, trying to concentrate, drowning out the others’ chatter.

Several people inside, but none are familiar. No Clarke. No Jasper. No Miller.

They’re not here.

But yet again, he can’t tell the others how he knows that. He has to sit and wait until they have proof of it themselves. Fuck.

‘The guy with the one eye,’ Finn suddenly hisses. ‘Look. Around his neck.’

Bellamy does, and with a lurch, he recognises the garment.

‘What is it?’ Sterling asks.

‘Clarke’s watch,’ Finn says, angrily. ‘Her father gave it to her.’

‘She wouldn’t give that up without a fight,’ Bellamy has to agree. 

‘So they’re here?’ Monroe asks.

‘I don’t think so,’ Bellamy says, tentative. ‘There isn’t a huge presence of guards here. They must be somewhere else.’

Finn frowns at him, but he ignores the confused thoughts, offers the kid a compromise.

‘We question him, find out what he knows. That’s our best option.’

Everyone but Finn makes sounds of agreement, and with a sigh, he eventually nods. 

‘Fine. How do we do this?’

It’s quite easy, really. It’s lucky that Monroe and Sterling have so much trust in him to pull off a plan. Murphy’s reluctant to do his part, but it’s not like he has a choice. Finn’s jaw is clenched the entire time, but Bellamy ignores him. Storming a prison camp with none of their people in it is the worst idea ever, no matter how much Finn wants information.

They drag the grounder to Finn’s little bunker. Bellamy spots a toy car on the floor and realises it’s where Clarke and Raven had got the radio components. There’s also a bed on the floor, and evidence of someone’s rage-induced destruction.

It takes all his willpower not to comment.

Bellamy and Sterling strap the grounder to the chair just as he notices him stirring, and he makes them step back a little. Grounders were well trained, and a well-timed kick could take them all out.

‘You need to answer some of our questions,’ Bellamy starts off, and the grounder frowns at him.

_Graceling._

Bellamy frowns back. The word Octavia had used for him, that Lincoln had taught her.

‘Look, we just want to know where our people are. If you tell us--’

This time, the guy spits the word out loud. Well, at least he can respond to it this time.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But unlike your people, we don’t have a problem with it.’

The grounder spits beside him. ‘My people threw me out for being one.’ A grimace shows rotten teeth. ‘Why do you think I carved out my own eye?’

‘Enough of this shit,’ Finn cuts in. He leans forward and rips the watch off the grounder’s chest. ‘Where did you get this? Where’s the girl that was wearing it?’

The grounder blinks. ‘Girl? No girl. I found it at your camp.’

‘Don’t lie,’ Finn snarls.

‘Finn,’ Bellamy says, low. ‘Let me--’

‘So what, you’ll torture Lincoln, but this guy you want to be all pals with?’ Finn hisses. He raises the gun that Abby gave him, a gun that Bellamy’s regretting letting be in his hands. ‘No more lying. Where are our people?’

The grounder shakes his head. His one eye is staring at the gun, fearful. ‘I don’t know. When I got there, the army was ash. There was a pile of supplies outside the walls of your camp--’

‘There’s no way she took this off willingly!’ Finn shakes the watch in the grounder’s face.

Bellamy sighs heavily. If Finn just let him question the bastard, he’d at least be able to tell if he was lying. But with the answers directed at Finn, any intentions of lying were also directed at him.

‘Just tell us where our people are,’ Bellamy says. ‘Someone took them; we need to know where.’

Finn hits the guy in the temple, making everyone flinch. It’s unsettling, seeing Spacewalker so violent.

‘I don’t know,’ the grounder cries. ‘I don’t know! _Ai nou get in. Ai nou get in_.’

‘What the fuck is he saying?’

‘They have their own language, dumbass,’ Murphy drawls from behind them. ‘Makes it easier to keep secrets.’

‘ _Ai nou get in. Ai nou set raun der. Ai nou gona nou longa. Mebi heda don jak emo op. Mebi maunon. Ai nou get in. Beja. Nou frag ai op!'_

‘Great,’ Bellamy says. ‘You scared him into a language we don’t understand.’

‘I don’t see you doing any better,’ Finn replies, clenching his fists.

Bellamy sighs. ‘Just let him calm down--’

‘We can get the information out of him if we just--’

Bellamy grabs Finn’s wrist tightly, the one reaching for a knife. ‘Finn. Trust me. There are some lines you can’t uncross.’

 _He doesn’t care about Clarke like I do. He doesn’t understand_.

He fights the urge to deck the guy. Bellamy _does_ understand. He understands what it took for him to drive a nail through Lincoln’s hand, only for the man he tortured to be the sort of guy to turn around and help them and protect his sister.

Torture isn’t the answer. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

It doesn’t help that Murphy eggs Finn on, no doubt wanting his own revenge on a grounder for his torture. Seems like a theme, down here, Bellamy thinks bitterly.

Eventually, though, the grounder does seem to break. He tells them about a prison camp east of them, that that's where their people are, that they don’t have much time left.

But it’s all with a gun to his head.

He’s answering Finn, but his eye keeps darting to Bellamy. And while he can’t know the grounder is lying, not for sure, Bellamy feels something off about his answer. He wishes he could voice it, but he can’t, not if he wants them to trust him. Finn, especially, he doesn’t trust with the knowledge of his gift.

Maybe he still is selfish.

The grounder draws them a map with a shaky hand, and they’re packing their things when Sterling pipes up.

‘What do we do with him?’

‘For now, we leave him. We deal with him later.’

‘What if he escapes, Bellamy?’ Murphy argues. ‘What if he tells his people where we’re headed?’

‘We’re not killing him,’ Bellamy grits his teeth.

‘So what, you kill a dozen grounders in battle, but now you have a problem with it?’

Bellamy lets out a breath. ‘I killed grounders when they killed us first. In battle. This? This would be an execution. We’re not killing him--'

_Bang!_

Finn tucks the smoking gun away, walking away from the corpse of the grounder without a second glance.

‘Let’s go; we’re wasting time.’

They all stare at him, even Murphy. ‘And you thought I was the crazy one,’ the boy mutters, heading up the ladder.

Bellamy swallows deeply as they follow Finn out, and Monroe glances back to the grounder.

‘He shouldn’t have done that, should he?’

‘No.’

He follows them up the ladder, closing it behind them, and they run after Finn, already stalking his way into the forest. 

Two kids who ran away from a battle, and two kids who are total loose cannons. That’s Bellamy’s team to go rescue the others, if the information they have is even correct.

God, he misses Clarke.

*******

Anya pulls her through the forest, Clarke’s arms bound in front of her. 

‘Listen to me, Anya. The best chance we have against the Mountain Men is to _unite--_ ’

‘I could never unite with someone as weak as you,’ Anya spits. She glances past Clarke at the sounds of the men following them, cursing something under her breath. ‘They’re still following us. Following _you_. Come on.’

A dart flings past them as she yanks on the rope, and there’s just enough slack for Clarke to grab it from the tree before they continue on.

No matter how much Anya tries, the patrol still follows them. ‘You stink of them,’ Anya says, and makes them both cover themselves with muck. Clarke doesn’t bother pointing out that she doubts the Mountain Men track by scent. Anya doesn’t want to hear it.

She holds her tongue until it gets to the point that it’s obvious their trackers have some way of knowing where they are, no matter what they do.

‘Anya, I’m as quiet as you through the forest, we’re both covered in mud, we’re leaving no trail,’ Clarke pleads when the grounder turns to kill her. They’re both exhausted, filthy, hungry. ‘They must be tracking us another way…’ Tracking. That was it.

She runs her hands over her skin. Fuck. Of course. ‘Check under your skin. They probably have technology they might have planted on us, to follow us--’

Anya rolls back a sleeve and stares at the misshapen lump. ‘It’s you,’ Clarke breathes.

‘ _Nou longa,_ ’ Anya mutters.

‘Wait! Let me clean it off, find a clean knife--’

Anya tears it out with her teeth, turning Clarke’s stomach. It’s hardcore, but kind of impressive, she has to admit.

‘I will not go back there,’ Anya declares.

They continue on for an hour more, no more patrol stalking them. Anya relaxes, evidently not expecting a fight from Clarke, now that they’ve shaken their trail and her hands are still bound.

But Clarke recognises this river. If she follows it long enough, she’ll reach the bridge, and find her way home from there.

‘Anya, let me look at your wound at least. It might be infected.’

The grounder narrows her eyes, suspicious, but she lets her guard down long enough for Clarke to take the opportunity, plunging the dart into her neck.

‘Sorry, but you’re my prisoner now,’ Clarke tells her, binding Anya’s hands up with the same rope. ‘I can find my way home from here. I promise I don’t want to do this, but you left me no choice.’

There’s no response. Anya’s fallen unconscious.

Clarke gathers together the materials for something to drag Anya with, thanking god her Earth Skills marks were so high, especially in resource management.

And then she starts the painstaking process of walking back home, back to the Dropship. Bellamy might be there, Finn, Raven. And if the Ark survived, people she knew from up there. Jackson, maybe. Thelonious.

Not her mom, though. She can’t have everything.

They arrive in the late afternoon, Clarke dragging Anya through the gates to find...nothing.

It’s empty of everything. No supplies, not a single soul. Nothing but a smudged message scratched into the metal of the Dropship, smudged and unintelligible but for the first word.

CLARKE

Someone tried to leave her a message.

She’s so consumed in trying to guess who (Bellamy? Finn?) that she doesn’t notice Anya waking up, pulling herself to her feet, and swinging for her.

It’s a ferocious fight, and honestly, Clarke doesn’t expect to do as well as she does, especially against a grounder leader who’s probably had years and years of war experience. Then again, she still has sedative drugs in her system, is severely malnourished and has recently been hung upside down and had blood pumped from her.

Yet Clarke’s body moves on its own at times, dodging and hitting and finding ash to fling in her opponent’s eyes to distract her. Anya pins her down, but Clarke manages to smash a rock into her head, rolling on top of her herself.

Smash. Punch. Punch.

She kind of gets lost in her anger for a second, beating Anya’s face to a pulp. Clarke knows, intellectually, that she’s taking out her frustration on someone who she needs, ultimately, to be her ally, but she can’t quite help it. She grabs the knife Anya’s slashed her with, hesitating over the body of her enemy. There’s defeat in Anya’s eyes, but respect too. Clarke could kill her now, end it here.

That’s when she sees it. 

In the distance, in front of the western mountains. A balloon. There’s no way it’s from grounders.

It’s her people. She was right. Dante _lied_.

She turns back to Anya, who’s squinting up at her, dazed and bruised, smiling deliriously.

‘You fought well, Graceling.’

‘I’m not the sort to give up,’ Clarke tells her, and hauls her up. ‘I just saw a signal from my people. We’re leaving, now.’

And to her surprise, Anya’s relatively compliant, not fighting off her restraints, just watching Clarke with pondering eyes.

It’s about a thirteen mile walk in the direction Clarke saw the signal, but everywhere along the way there's things that signal the presence of her people. Booted footprints, bullet casings, threads caught on branches from Ark-issue clothing. The sun sets as they make their slow progress, but they get there.

Alpha Station, Clarke recognises. Her home on the Ark. It's lit up with floodlights, a fence being strung around the perimeter, guards in intervals along the boundary. She’s _made_ it.

‘How many are there?’

Clarke turns to look at Anya. Her eyes are guarded, but there’s a curious, wary tone.

‘A lot, I hope.’ She bites her lip, but makes her decision.

She unties the rope.

‘Look. I know there’s bad blood between our people, but we have a greater enemy now. The Mountain Men are draining your people of blood, and it won’t be long before they start on mine. I don’t want either of those things.’ She glances at the camp. ‘I know my people will want to move on the Mountain, and look past our history to do so. The question is...will yours?’

Anya hesitates, but nods, eventually. ‘The Commander was my second. I can get an audience.’ She tilts her head at Clarke. ‘And I believe that learning of your Grace will earn her respect.’

Clarke frowns. ‘I don’t know my Grace.’

‘If it’s not fighting, it’s something similar,’ Anya says, even. ‘If not, you could not have beaten me.’

There’s a lurch in Clarke’s chest. She shakes her head.

‘I thought we were outcasts.’

‘It depends on the Grace, and the worthiness of the person. Lincoln was allowed to associate with our people because his Grace of silence was useful to us. The same courtesy could be extended to you, given your skills.’

‘So you think there’s a chance?’

Anya gives a single nod.

‘Then please hurry. The sooner we get peace, the sooner we save our people.’ She holds a hand out, reminiscent of their first time, on the bridge. But this time, Anya takes it. Not by the hand, but by the wrist.

‘ _Os soujon,_ Clarke.’

She turns away before Clarke can ask what it means or reply, stumbling into the forest.

Or almost into the forest.

A shout and a bang rings out, a sound whistles past her ear, and Anya falls, blood blooming from a wound in her chest.

‘No! Anya!’

Clarke races for her, copping a bullet in the shoulder for her efforts. She kneels down, turning Anya over, pressing down on the wound. But there’s too much blood, and Anya’s already murmuring something to herself.

‘ _Ai gonplei ste odon._ ’

Her head lolls to the side, and another person lies dead in Clarke’s arms. Her chance at peace, at saving her friends. 

The Ark soldiers drag her back, hands rough around her arms.

They drag her into her home like a prisoner.

*

‘Can you make them hurry up?’ Finn hisses to him as they trek through the forest towards the camp apparently holding their friends hostage.

Sterling and Murphy are falling behind, obviously tired and in need of water.

‘Tell them yourself,’ Bellamy says shortly.

_They listen to him, not me._

But he evidently takes Bellamy’s advice, judging from the raised voices that start up from behind him.

‘We don’t have time to make camp, Murphy! The grounder said so. “They’ll soon outlive their usefulness.” You heard him, didn’t you Bellamy?’

‘I heard what he said when you had a gun to his head,’ Bellamy says evenly. ‘And we can’t save our friends if we’re hungry and thirsty and dead on our feet.’

Finn opens his mouth to argue back when Bellamy notices Monroe’s expression turn ashen.

‘Guys?’

She points behind them, and to Bellamy’s horror, there’s a dead body on the ground, just off the path. Suddenly, the increasingly bad smell and presence of droning flies start to make sense. They follow the trail along, more bodies littering the underbrush. They’re in Ark clothing, surrounded by metal and space supplies. It’s not hard to deduce where they’re from.

There’s no sense of life from any of them. And when they see what’s happened to Factory Station, gutted over the cliff like half-cut meat falling off a butcher’s board, it’s not hard to imagine why.

This is where he used to live, Bellamy realises. Somewhere among the ripped metal and rubble is the remains of the apartment they hid Octavia in for sixteen years.

‘They’re all dead,’ Finn says, quietly. ‘There’s nothing we can do. We have to move on.’

If he was with any other group, Bellamy might have suggested saying the Traveller’s Blessing. It’s one of the Ark traditions he’d never hated. He feels like Clarke might have appreciated the idea, if she was here.

But she’s not, and they have John Murphy, down-to-earth Monroe, clueless Sterling, and ex-pacifist turned executioner Finn Collins. 

He doesn’t bother.

But as Bellamy’s turning away, his senses that told him there was no life suddenly register movement from down the cliff edge. Human movement.

‘Wait,’ he says, and shuffles over carefully to peer over. And just as he does, the scream rings out.

‘Help! Please, somebody, help!’

‘Mel?’ Sterling gasps. Bellamy glances at him. Sterling knows this girl.

Finn blanches. ‘Guys, we can’t save her, come on…’

But Sterling’s already unpacking the rope, feeding it down, tying it to a tree stump.

‘Looks like he’s listened to one too many of your motivational speeches,’ Murphy remarks, as Sterling steadfastly ignores Finn’s orders to move out. Instead, he lowers himself down the cliff.

‘Bellamy, come on--’

‘We’re not leaving them here, Finn. These kids are my responsibility. If Sterling wants to help, we’re helping.’

Finn huffs, but doesn’t argue, and they watch as the ledge breaks below Sterling and Mel’s feet. Yet they still hang on.

The rope, however, doesn’t. Just as Mel’s about to trust Sterling to carry her, Bellamy hears a _thwip_ from behind him. He grabs at the rope, reflexes there, but it’s too thin, too weak. It runs through his fingers.

Sterling falls. Mel screams.

Another one, Bellamy thinks, hollow. A-fucking-nother one. So much for these kids being his responsibility.

But Bellamy knows he can redeem himself, here. Sterling died heroically, trying to save his friend. The least Bellamy can do is try and save Mel for him.

Monroe nods, steadfast. ‘Sterling was one of us, and she’s his friend. I’m in.’

Finn’s jaw works, but he helps them lash together the seatbelts anyway, and Bellamy ties it properly to something this time. He should have checked the knot the first time. But it’s too late for that now.

Mel’s a trooper, truly. He isn’t lying, telling her she’s strong. She has to be, hanging from a cliff for this long.

_Oh god please let him save me please don’t let him die too please let him save me please don’t let him fall like Sterling oh god._

Her thoughts are a panicked mess, unsurprisingly, but Bellamy coaxes her from her holding spot eventually. Only the hardest part to go.

The first drop of the makeshift rope, his heart stutters. Murphy was on the front. Did the guy still want to kill him?

_Fuck hold on Bellamy I got this fuck I got him hold on._

Maybe not.

His heart drops again when he senses the arrows. Fucking _grounders._ Of course, just what they need when there’s three people trying to haul two people up a cliff-face with seatbelts.

But then the horn sounds.

He doesn’t know whether to panic or be relieved. The horn will mean the grounders will disappear, but the acid fog will kill them too, maybe even more painfully.

They’re finally pulled over the edge, all of them collapsing on the loose stones. 

_Hope he appreciated that._

Bellamy looks down, noticing Murphy’s red-raw hands, two loose ends of a seatbelt held in those fists. The bastard saved him.

He nods at him, letting the thanks show on his face.

_Maybe it’ll make up for the bruises I put on his neck._

Bellamy lets out a soft snort to himself, and then his hairs stand on end, his head shooting up before he even fully, consciously registers it. There’s a presence moving towards them through the trees.

But it’s not hostile. It’s Octavia.

‘What about the acid fog?’ Finn is saying frantically.

‘No need,’ Bellamy grins, just as his sister appears at the treeline.

_Bell._

He runs to her, hugs her tight to him, a tension in his chest he didn’t know was there until this moment finally easing. His sister’s _alive_.

And she has a new hairstyle, and a sword.

It suits her.

‘I’m so glad you’re okay,’ he tells her, the words woefully inadequate to his real feelings. Luckily, his sister knows him.

‘Told you we’d meet again,’ she says, and he rolls his eyes.

Together, they sort out what they can. Bellamy makes a sling for Mel’s shoulder, remembering Clarke’s impromptu lesson in the Dropship one night. It was during a discussion about chore delegation; Lia had stumbled in with a sore shoulder. He’d been about to leave her to it when she insisted he watch and learn, just in case.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, she’ll come back and tell him he’s been doing it wrong.

Octavia deals with the arrow in Monroe’s leg, and he overhears Murphy’s jab about Lincoln.

‘Gone,’ she replies to him flatly.

Bellamy’s heart twists.

‘I’m sorry, O,’ he says after crouching next to her.

_You didn’t even like him._

‘But you did,’ he says, low. ‘And I did like him, at the end. I’m guessing he did everything he could to protect you.’

‘And then some,’ Octavia mutters.

‘Well, there you go. I like him.’

It gets a begrudging smile, so he counts it as a victory.

‘I have to go,’ Finn interrupts them, gun dangling from his hands, map held tight in his fist. ‘Our people are still out there.’

It’s essentially a lie, Bellamy detects. By “our people”, he means Clarke, but Bellamy doesn’t bother correcting him.

‘I have to take them home.’

‘I know,’ Finn says. ‘I’ll be back with the rest soon.’

Something about the situation doesn’t sit well with Bellamy. Finn’s behaviour isn’t _right_ , and he’s not sure he should be letting the guy go into a grounder camp, willing to do anything to find Clarke. So far, that’s included torture, interrogation, execution. Maybe it can’t get worse than that, but he’s also _alone_.

Maybe that’s why he throws Murphy the other rifle. He’s the other loose cannon, but his behaviour has been decidedly that of a tighter cannon, as of late.

Or, at least, it’s decent for Murphy.

And there’s nothing he can do to stop them anyway. Finn won’t listen to him, and Murphy’s not gonna take orders he doesn’t like. And Mel and Monroe need him.

‘I can’t get them home without you,’ he tells Octavia, and she smirks.

_Of course you can’t._

So he leaves his guilt behind, at the cliff. He knows he did the right thing, saving Mel, and now he’s got his sister back with him, everything does look a little more hopeful.

Maybe Finn and Murphy will find their people, bring them back unharmed. Maybe after that they’ll end the war with the grounders somehow, barter for peace, just like Clarke (and Finn, once upon a time) had wanted.

After all, stranger things have happened, down here on Earth.

*******

“...but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman. his menial services are needed in the dust of our **human trials** , even more than his dignity is needed in the empyrean.”

— william james

They think she’s a grounder.

She is covered in mud, multiple wounds, and wearing filthy clothes, Clarke supposes. But she can barely stand, and they’re already trying to question her. It doesn’t bode well for their future liaisons with the grounders.

If they even have any. Will there even be anyone in the camp who can recognise her? Who will listen to a word she says, if they think she’s a hostile?

She doesn’t have the energy to protest now. She’s bleeding through her shoulder wound, and she knows she won’t last much longer without medical intervention. Her head is already faint, her weight almost completely on the guards hauling her through the yard.

Just as she thinks she’s about to pass out, though, she hears a gasp.

‘That’s not a grounder. Her eyes...that’s my _daughter._ ’

Clarke doesn’t register it until her mom’s face is swimming before her, those familiar dark eyes full of tears.

‘Clarke!’

‘Mom?’

The guards release her into her mom’s arms, and Clarke lets herself be held, mud and all, for a second, before she collapses under the weight of her tired legs.

‘Get her to medical!’

They carry her, more gently this time, to a tent. Her mom doesn’t let go of her hand.

She hears the familiar cadence of Jackson’s voice as they lay her down, and feels oddly homesick for a time long past, of spending time in medical while her mom worked around her, occasionally stopping to teach.

Now, she’s the patient, her mom stroking back her hair, looking at Clarke like it’s her that’s been presumed dead.

‘I saw your ship crash,’ Clarke murmurs.

‘I wasn’t on it. I’m right here.’

The guard from before, the one who questioned her, makes her way into the tent, exchanging a short, clipped conversation with her mom. But it’s the question she asks Clarke that tugs her back to lucidity. Where has she been?

‘Mount Weather,’ Clarke answers, prompting the room to silence. She’s guessing it wasn’t the expected answer.

‘The grounders took you to Mount Weather?’

‘No,’ Clarke says, sitting up as her mom tries to wipe the blood and gore from her. ‘The Mountain Men. We have to get them back.’ She has to impress on them the importance of it. After her escape, who knew how long Jasper, Monty, Miller and the others had?

‘Mom, did anyone else make it here?’

Abby smiles, just a little. ‘Yes. Six of you.’

She barely dares to hope. ‘Bellamy? Finn? Raven?’

The nod she gets in reply is enough to break down all the walls Clarke’s built up, in the last however many days. Since the white room, she’s refused to mourn them. She refused to mourn her _mother_ , back when the Exodus ship had crashed.

‘I thought they were dead. I thought _you_ were dead.’ The words escape in a tumble, her emotions shattering, and she cries into her mother’s arms, feeling like a child again. 

She hasn’t felt like a child in a long time.

Her mother cleans her up fully after that, the mud and grime wiped from her face. She even gets new clothes, Abby helping her slide into them before insisting she sleeps.

As much as she wants to argue, Clarke’s dead tired. She’s been up for nearly two days, and hadn’t got much sleep in Mount Weather before that, paranoid as she was.

And was right to be.

When she wakes up, it’s a relief to know it wasn’t all a dream. Her mom’s in front of her, alive. And from what she said, the others are too.

But of course, her mom wants her to lie down, let her take over, rest. Clarke can’t afford to do that, not on the ground, not when her friends are in trouble.

If her mom is the Chancellor now, maybe she can convince her to move quicker.

‘I don’t need to rest. I’m fine. We need to move against Mount Weather. Where are Bellamy and Finn?’

‘Clarke, slow down!’

‘Mom, you don’t need to protect me--’

‘Ma’am, sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got movement in the North Woods.’

Clarke’s head shoots up. 

‘Grounders?’ Abby asks.

‘I don’t think so,’ Byrne says, and Clarke grabs her jacket.

The sun is bright outside. Now it’s not night, Clarke can see that Alpha Station landed in a huge clearing, the trees a perfect perimeter to the north. She follows her mom out, and from the corner of her eye, there’s a red jacket.

‘Hi,’ Clarke breathes, and Raven hugs her tight.

‘I’ve been waiting out here all night. Abby said you needed sleep.’

Clarke releases her, and Raven puts her weight back down on crutches. There’s a heavy looking brace on her leg. Paralysis, Clarke realises. The bullet must have affected her spine.

‘Sucks,’ Raven says, seeing Clarke’s expression. ‘But I’m dealing with it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Clarke, you saved my life. Don’t be sorry.’

There are shouts in the distance, calls to open the gate.

‘It’s probably Finn and Bellamy,’ Raven says. And one of her guesses is right. Clarke spots the familiar figure of Bellamy from all the way across the yard. She wonders if he senses she’s here now.

‘Go,’ Raven pokes her. ‘I’ll catch up.’

Clarke throws her a grateful glance, and looks back at Bellamy. He’s distracted, talking to some guards, helping a girl with a sling.

She’s so fucking relieved to see him.

So she runs, times it so he’s bowled over by her hug, and she feels, with smug satisfaction, his surprise. But at that thought, his arms come up around her, hugging her back tightly, lifting her off the ground slightly.

She breathes in his familiar scent. Earth, gunpowder, Bellamy. 

_You’re alive, and you’re here_ , she thinks to him. _I thought I killed you_.

He holds on for a bit longer. 

‘I’m right here,’ he murmurs in her ear. For a second, everything seems okay in the world again.

‘Now there’s something I thought I’d never see,’ she hears Octavia quip, and she snorts into Bellamy’s shoulder, before finally releasing him.

_You got my message._

A tiny nod, a grin.

Clarke hugs Octavia too, marvelling a little at the girl’s transformation. She has braids in her hair, a sword on her back.

‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ Octavia says, and Clarke returns the sentiment, stepping back to look at them both.

Bellamy is still looking at her with happiness, amazement, even. She wishes she knew what was going on inside his head, like he does her. It’s a little embarrassing, knowing he knows how ecstatic she is.

He tilts his head. ‘How many with you?’

And with that, her heart sinks. Reality sets back in again.

‘None,’ she has to tell him, and she sees the confusion in his eyes.

_But they’re alive, I promise. For now. It wasn’t the grounders._

Raven appears behind them, then, grinning at them both, and she and Clarke must have the same thought, because they both look behind Bellamy.

‘Where’s Finn?’ Clarke asks.

It’s Bellamy’s turn for his face to drop. ‘Looking for you.’

_What do you mean, looking for me?_

Bellamy opens his mouth, but Octavia interrupts.

‘Let’s discuss this inside.’

Raven leads them to her tent, mouth set in an unmoving grimace. Clarke feels a wave of guilt. Bellamy had directed the words to her, specifically. Looking for _her_.

‘What happened?’ She and Bellamy say at the same time, almost in unison, once they’re in the tent.

Octavia snorts.

Raven sighs. ‘Clarke, you first. We have no idea what happened to you. Your mom said you said something about Mount Weather?’

‘Like in Lincoln’s book?’ Octavia asks, face ashen.

‘Yeah. There’s a whole bunker in the mountain, a whole population of people, living there since the bombs. And they're not grounders. They wear button-up shirts and play opera and feed us chocolate cake.’

‘ _How_?’ Raven asks, but Bellamy shakes his head, eyeing her.

‘What’s the catch? Why bring you in? What’s in it for them?’

She gives him a small smile.

_Exactly what I thought._

‘It seemed great, on the surface. The others certainly thought so. There was forty-eight of us. Including Monty.’

‘That’s who captured him that night,’ Bellamy realises. ‘It wasn’t the grounders then, either.’

She nods at him. ‘No, it wasn’t. They brought us in. Decontaminated us of radiation. I met the President. He was sweet as pie. But it didn’t add up. Why bring us in? Why did they care about us? Where were our people? I saw the Ark fall that night. And where were you guys, and Finn?’

‘And why aren’t they living on the surface?’ Raven says, but Clarke spots the calculation behind the other girl’s odd eyes, her mind putting together the pieces quicker than anyone.

‘They weren’t exposed to radiation all that time. They don’t have immunity.’ Raven stares at her. ‘And we do. Fuck, solar radiation, right?’

Clarke sighs. ‘Exactly. And guess what I found, when I went exploring? A dungeon full of cages. Grounders in them, hundreds of them. Hanging from hooks, being drained for their blood. I’ll have to tell my mom about it, but it’s some sort of dialysis. Basically cycling the resistant blood through their systems to heal them of radiation.’

‘And our people are next,’ Raven says, with a tone of finality.

‘When they briefly had me again, after I ran, after I saw the truth, they told me I was bound for the harvest chamber. I don’t doubt it.’

‘We have to get Kane to sanction a mission,’ Bellamy says, and Raven grimaces. 

‘Kane left to go make peace with the grounders to get them back. Abby’s in charge now.’

Octavia nods. ‘So let’s go talk to her.’

She throws Clarke a smile before she and Raven hustle out of there, and Clarke’s left with Bellamy, who stares at her again, like she’s going to disappear before his eyes.

‘What did you mean by Finn’s looking for _me_?’ she asks, trying to break the mood.

His mouth hardens into a thin line. ‘It’s...complicated. Basically, Abby and Miller’s dad snuck us out with guns. Me and Finn, Monroe and Sterling. And Murphy.’

_Murphy?_

He sighs. ‘Long story. But we lost Sterling rescuing that girl from Factory Station and Monroe was hit. We had to get them back here. Finn went ahead to find you.’ He grimaces. ‘But before that, we interrogated a grounder, to find out information. He obviously lied.’

‘Did you--’

‘No,’ Bellamy says firmly. ‘I wouldn’t do that again.’

Clarke softens. _I didn’t mean…_

‘It’s okay,’ he closes his eyes. ‘I never thought I’d see a day where Spacewalker threatened someone with a gun. But…’

‘So we have to go after them,’ Clarke says immediately. If Finn’s acting out, then more than just him and Murphy were in danger.

He smiles. ‘Reading my mind, Princess?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Why did I want you back with me again?’

A smile plays around his lips, but he grows somber again, leading her out of the tent towards Abby and the council rooms. 

‘I really am glad you’re back, Clarke. It’s been…’

‘Hard, without someone to lean on? I know the feeling.’

Bellamy ducks his head. ‘Then come on. Lean on me, and let’s go save our people.’

‘As always.’

He smiles again, and despite the circumstances, despite the scars littering his face (and hers), Clarke feels stronger than ever, knowing they’re backing each other up.

‘The feeling’s mutual.’

They nod at each other and walk in step across the yard. 

*

After Clarke appraises the council of the situation, she and Bellamy wait outside the rooms, impatient. He can’t help but look at her every few seconds, still amazed she’s here and alive.

And since she can still read him like a book, she’s registering his surprise.

_He’s looking at me like I’m going to disappear._

‘To be fair, you did.’

She scowls at him, and he just grins back.

‘Well, I’m fine now, okay? And definitely fine enough to go get Finn and Murphy,’ she grumbles, and he nods, trying to appease her.

‘I know. Let’s just hope the council think the same thing.’

She tilts her head towards the doors.

‘Can you sense anything?’

He closes his eyes, concentrating, but as much as he knows there’s several people in there, including Clarke’s mom, they’re evidently not discussing him.

‘No. We’ll just have to be patient, Princess.’

_You’re one to talk._

He can’t snipe back at her like he wants to, a hint of a smile arching his lips, because the doors are opening, and Abby’s walking out, a grim expression on her face. Bellamy doesn’t need her next words to be about him to know what she’s about to say.

‘I’m sorry, Clarke. Finn and Murphy aren’t our priority right now.’

‘No, you can’t just cut them loose!’

Watching the Griffins argue with each other is an interesting experience. They both talk the same way, hair trickling down their shoulders in the same way, both stubborn in their convictions. One might be blonde with light, strange eyes, one a brunette with dark, monochromatic eyes, but the only difference between them right now is their arguments. And Bellamy knows who he’s going to back in a fight.

‘I’m sorry,’ Abby says. ‘The decision’s been made.’

‘You’re sorry?’ Bellamy can’t help but interject, from his loitering position, and both women turn to stare at him.

Clarke’s eyebrow is raised, a spark in her eye like she thinks him challenging her mom is funny.

On Abby’s part, her expression is positively thunderous.

_How dare he question me?_

‘Finn and Murphy are out there, looking for _your_ daughter with guns _you_ gave us. And now she’s home, you’re just gonna abandon them?’

 _Well said_ , Clarke thinks to him. _Have a counter offer for her?_

Of course he does. The same one she does. ‘If you can’t spare the guards, we have a map, we know the terrain, we can do it ourselves.’

Clarke nods, but Abby’s shaking her head. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘Mom!’

‘I just got you back!’

In a way, he gets it. He was just as protective of Octavia just a few weeks ago, not wanting her to leave and put herself in danger. But like his sister, Clarke’s proved she can look after herself.

Besides, he’ll be with her.

Abby commands Byrne to close down the camp and leaves with Jackson, but not before sending him a glare.

_If he puts my daughter in danger, there’ll be hell to pay._

It’s not his choice, though. It’s Clarke’s. And when she turns to him, looking him in the eye, he’s not surprised at all by her thoughts.

_We’re gonna need guns._

He nods subtly, and they leave together, Bellamy feeling the watchful eye of Byrne on his neck.

But she doesn’t follow them, and when they’re out in the yard again, he turns to her.

‘Raven should be able to get us guns. I’ll talk to her, you pack us supplies. Include one for Octavia, too.’

She nods. ‘No time to waste. Let’s go.’

Working together with Clarke, everything seems right again. It all goes smoothly. Raven’s obviously annoyed she can’t go with them; she wants to find Finn more than anyone. They meet behind a sharp piece of wreckage with the guns and supplies. And Octavia, when she turns up insisting she’s coming too.

‘You done?’ he rolls his eyes at her, throwing her the pack, and smirking at her.

 _Knew you couldn’t do it without me_.

‘Lead the way,’ is all he says in response, and they crawl through the fence after Raven organises the shut-off, heading into the woods.

The trek is silent at first. They’re all intent on their mission after all, and talking will just slow them down.

Without outwardly agreeing to it, they decide to stop for the night a little over halfway there according to Octavlia. Clarke makes a fire, they eat a quick dinner, and Octavia lays out a bedroll, lying down and closing her eyes, drifting off to sleep.

Clarke does the same. She’s on her side, lying by the fire. But as an hour or so passes, she’s still awake. He looks at her a little, still drinking her presence in, and like she can sense his eyes on her, she opens her own, looking up at him.

_You’re staring at me again. You keep doing that._

He sighs. ‘It’s just...strange. Last time I saw you, you were closing the Dropship door.’

 _I’m sorry_.

‘It had to be done.’

_I wish I didn’t have to. But you got my message after all._

They haven’t talked about this yet, not properly. He’d nodded the answer to that question, back at their reunion. But even if Octavia’s awake, it won’t matter that their conversation is half non-verbal. The perks of going on a mission with the only two people he trusts with his secret.

‘Loud and clear. I grabbed Finn and ran. We got a bit toasted in the tunnels, but you saved us, Clarke. And if you hadn’t done it, we all would have died.’

She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

_I still killed a lot of people._

But she hauls herself up to a sitting position anyway, eyes soft. ‘Get any sleep?’

‘No. You didn’t either, I know that much.’ He sighs. ‘I’ll sleep when we find Finn.’ Bellamy bites his lip, wondering whether he should tell her the full extent of what he’d seen the former pacifist do. But from her searching, suspicious eyes, he knows he can’t hide it from her. Or protect her. ‘You haven’t seen him, Clarke. He’s not himself. He executed the grounder that drew us the map to the village, after interrogating him. Pulled the trigger and walked away like nothing had happened.’

Clarke blinks, obviously shocked. ‘That doesn’t sound like Finn.’

‘No,’ he agrees. ‘Losing you, the war. Something's switched inside of him. I saw what he was capable of, and I still let him go with John fucking Murphy and two automatic rifles.’

Clarke’s eyes pierce him, but not in a bad way. She reaches out, puts a hand on his wrist. 

_I’m sure that had to be done, too._

Bellamy lowers his head. ‘Maybe. We did assume it was the grounders.’

‘Of course you did, Bellamy. Who could have guessed it was the Mountain Men? And they stripped us of all our stuff. Nothing with radiation was let in. Except us, of course,’ she adds bitterly.

‘That’s why,’ Bellamy realises, sighing. ‘The grounder Finn shot. That’s why he had your watch. He picked it up where the Mountain Men left it.’

Clarke’s face falls. ‘Fuck. Of course Finn would see that and assume the worst. It was the first thing I asked their President about too...after I took one of their people hostage with a shard of glass to her neck.’

He snorts at the image. Clarke certainly didn’t pull punches. ‘Why am I not surprised?’ But he eyes her. ‘You said they were nice at first. How long until chocolate cake turns into being hung upside down and drained for their blood?’

She grimaces. ‘I don’t know. But now that I escaped? I don’t think there’s much time.’

‘Yeah. Well, we get Finn and Murphy, and then we come back and think of a plan. We’ll get them out. Together. I promise.’

_Together._

She smiles at him, silver and blue reflecting the firelight, and for a second, she looks ethereal.

In the silence, Octavia opens her eyes from across the way, sitting up and packing up her bedroll. ‘I think we’ve slept enough.’

 _And chatted enough_ , she thinks to him, pointedly.

But Clarke is nodding. ‘None of us are sleeping. May as well cover the ground now.’

So they set off again, Clarke leading the way because her eyesight seems better than his and Octavia’s, in the dark. They pick their way north-east, and once dawn has broken, Octavia takes the lead, telling them she recognises the gully they’re in.

‘The village is that way,’ she points down to where there’s a huge statue, covered in vines and moss. It’s of a man, and Bellamy vaguely recognises the posture. An old Earth President, he’s pretty sure. He can’t remember the name. ‘The Reapers...the Reapers came from there.’ She gestures, but Bellamy’s more concerned with the tears in his sister’s eyes.

_I couldn’t save him, Bell._

He hugs her to him like he used when she was young, smoothing the back of her neck, making comforting noises. There’s not a lot he can do to fix this one, though. He feels, in that moment, like a failure of a big brother.

A noise interrupts them, rips them apart. It’s the loud, echoing, bang of bullets, firing from an automatic weapon.

They don’t even pause to exchange glances. They run.

 _Not far_ , Octavia manages to think to him. Clarke’s already ahead of them, sprinting like he’s never seen before.

They stumble through the trees, into the clearing where a village yard is situated, and Bellamy takes what’s happening in, with abject horror.

Grounders rounded up like animals in a pen, bodies littering the mud outside of it. People inside panicking, jumping over the barrier, a man in the middle of them all yelling something indecipherable. Finn, turning and shooting, turning and shooting, turning and shooting.

And it only stops when Octavia runs with a scream into the middle of it, bending down over a fallen body. Finn is looking their way, and as Bellamy and Clarke tread closer, slow and horrified, Finn’s eyes are wide and only for Clarke.

‘I found you,’ he breathes, and he can feel, almost viscerally, Clarke’s revulsion, the way she freezes in horror. Bellamy steps forward, rips the gun out of Finn’s grip.

‘What the hell did you just do?’

Finn blinks, as if awakening from a trance.

‘I found her…’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Bellamy edges. ‘She found you shooting up a village. They never had them. The grounders never had them, Finn. Why...why?’

He blinks again. ‘They were trying to escape.’

‘Escape _what_?’ Clarke regains her senses, pitching forward, and just before she can lunge, Bellamy grabs her around the middle. 

‘Go help the wounded.’

‘There _is_ no wounded, Bellamy.’ She waves a hand, staring back at Finn. ‘They’re all _dead_. What the fuck have you _done?'_

Bellamy’s not sure how they get out of there, in the end. It’s mostly thanks to Octavia, who somehow knows the village’s leader. The fact that the dead, and most of the villagers, are children and the elderly factors in too, he’s sure. No warriors to kill them.

So they leave with Finn, a white-faced Murphy, a seething Octavia, and a shell-shocked Clarke.

The trek back to Camp Jaha is silent. Even Murphy doesn’t dare test a joke.

Clarke falls into step with Bellamy as they get closer. She doesn’t look at him, but stares out into the distance instead.

_Was that my fault?_

‘Clarke, no. Of course not. He’s...he’s not himself. If anything it’s my fault for--’

‘No,’ she says fiercely, out loud. _No. It’s...no. It’s never on you, okay? No matter how hostile you were to grounders...you’d never do_ this.

And absently, not quite part of the thought directed towards him with purpose, is another three words.

_Not a killer._

It’s definitely not true, but Bellamy puts a hand on her shoulder anyway, and she doesn’t shrug it off. ‘We did what we could.’

 _If only we were five minutes quicker_.

‘We can’t change what just happened, Clarke,’ he says, low. ‘We just have to…’

_Move past it?_

He shakes his head. ‘That’s for Finn to do. Us? We take it as a lesson. And we go back, and we figure it out together. The grounders and our people in Mount Weather. Got it?’

She finally turns to him, meeting his eyes sharply. Silver and blue. 

And then they soften, and she nods.

_Got it._

*

“better the shadow of truce than the **fog of war**."

— evan currie

The camp goes into lockdown, or as much of a lockdown a camp that can’t actually house all its constituents in the main building can muster. Most of the residents of Camp Jaha still live in tents.

Clarke’s given a room though, and to her surprise, Bellamy is too. Abby just avoids her eyes when she mentions it with an off-hand thanks. She’s still angry with Clarke for leaving, but as Chancellor, she can’t ignore the fact that she, Bellamy, and Octavia arrived in TonDC in time to stop more bloodshed.

Not that they stopped much. Eighteen dead. Clarke sees their bodies in her dreams, along with Finn’s face when he saw her and said those dreaded words.

Clarke doesn’t spend much time in her room, though. She and Bellamy are both of the same mind, in that being surrounded by the metal walls of the downed Ark makes them itchy and paranoid. They spend most of their time outside in the bar area, on the makeshift tables and chairs, poring over Clarke’s map.

‘Okay, tell me again?’

‘We got to the dam through this tunnel. It’s a labyrinth, though. I barely remember enough to draw it. But it’s all connected to the mine system. That’s our way in.’

Bellamy sighs. ‘Sure, if we can get past the Reapers and the Mountain Men.’

 _I did_ , Clarke thinks to him, and he snorts.

‘Yeah, but you’re the most stubborn person I know.’

She can’t help but smile a little, and he leans back up from the map, glancing back to the Ark. ‘I swear to god if your mom doesn’t sanction a mission soon, I’m going by myself.’

Clarke looks him in the eye, determined he believes her next thoughts.

_You won’t be by yourself._

His face softens, and he nods a little. ‘I know. And if you mean it, I’ll believe it,’ he reminds her, and she rolls her eyes.

But in the process, she spots two figures exit from the metal doors. Murphy and Finn. Bellamy follows her gaze.

‘Guess the inquisition’s over.’ He eyes her. ‘How’s Finn doing anyway?’

She clenches her jaw. ‘I haven’t talked to him. Not since...I don’t know what to say. He - he just kept shooting.’

Bellamy looks at her with something like pity, but not quite as condescending. Sympathy, maybe. ‘We’re at war, Clarke. We’ve all done things…’

She knows what he means. Neither of their hands are clean. But she can’t help but think that at least they had a reason. And Finn had a reason, but his didn’t justify the actions he took, the scope of what he did. 

‘Hey,’ greets the boy in question, glancing between the two of them, stone-faced. His gaze settles on Clarke’s, though, and she looks away.

Bellamy glances between them, looking awkward. ‘Next round’s on me?’

_Please don’t leave me alone with him oh god…_

But he just gives her an apologetic look, along with a tilt of the head that probably means “you have to talk to him”. Asshole.

Finn sits down in Bellamy’s seat, glancing down at her map, trying to catch her eye. She doesn’t let him, and he sighs. ‘Mount Weather?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s the plan?’

None that he’s involved in. ‘Still working on it,’ she replies stiffly.

Before he can pry further, Murphy joins them, setting his cup down, chattering about Monty’s still, cracking jokes about it as if all is fine with the world. Clarke can’t decide what to think about him. She’s angry with him for not stopping Finn. But at the same time, deep down, she knows that nothing could have stopped him.

But Murphy’s cavalier attitude is pissing her off.

‘Tell them we were cleared?’

Finn shakes his head, still looking intently at her. But she doesn’t look back.

‘We did what we had to do,’ he says quietly, and Clarke refrains from snapping at him. There’s a lot of things they’ve had to do, to survive on the ground.

This wasn’t the same.

Thankfully, he leaves after that, and Clarke takes out her irritation on Murphy, still trying to crack jokes. ‘Just because they pardoned you, doesn’t mean I have.’

She thinks he gets the message.

Clarke’s saved from Murphy though, by yet another person looking for her. God, all she wanted this evening was to sit and plan with Bellamy. But at least Raven’s news is good. Or at least it's helpful. Mount Weather has been jamming them. They’re the ones that crashed the Exodus Ship. It all comes together, and she even convinces her mother to sanction the mission.

It’s not hard to convince her to let Bellamy and Octavia come too, arguing for their knowledge of Earth, especially Octavia’s. And Bellamy’s just a good asset to have. He gets along with the other guards somehow, gives advice with authority and respect. And if her mom doesn’t realise the true reason they’re tagging along, well, she shouldn’t have underestimated them.

The rest of the day (and night) falls into two categories, for Clarke. She’s getting along well with Raven, both of them putting their heads together to solve the problems they stumble across, and they seem to be in one mind about Finn. He’s unstable, and they have to treat him as such. At first, she clashes with her mother, but Abby comes around to seeing the benefits of Clarke’s plans. And Raven, in Clarke's absence, convinces her mother to go with the plan that Clarke would have. Keep the radio frequency open, and use the information to have a one-up on Mount Weather.

Unfortunately, there’s the other hand.

Finn loses his temper, storms off, and Clarke feels obliged to follow him. And then she gets stuck in the Art Supply Store with him, only his sad, tortured eyes for company, along with the stinking corpse of the man he’d executed.

She hasn’t been with him, in here, since the night they’d...well, the night he’d betrayed Raven and she’d wanted comfort in a boy she thought she could trust.

He gives Clarke her father’s watch back. ‘He had it around his neck,’ he says. His eyes stay on hers without darting to the corpse in the corner, but that somehow makes it worse. She already knew all of this from Bellamy, of course. But Finn seems to think it justifies what he did.

All in all, it’s a relief when they’re allowed to climb out into the sun, though the walk back to Camp Jaha is under a heavy, awkward silence that Clarke has no intention of breaking.

They rendezvous with the others outside of the gate, and Clarke swallows down her anxiety at Bellamy and Octavia being missing. There's still good news. They have a channel open to listen to the enemy. Raven’s talking Finn down. She’s getting on with her mother.

And then a should-be-dead man appears, the father of her actually-dead best friend, thought to be left behind in space. Jaha sinks to his knees dramatically and proclaims that they leave or die.

It seems like Finn’s actions have finally caught up to them.

*****

He doesn’t _want_ to leave Clarke alone with Finn, and she pleads silently for him not to, but he inches away anyway. Finn’s hard stare is a dismissal all on its own, and while he usually wouldn’t listen to Spacewalker, the tension in the air is awkward enough on its own without him being there.

So he wanders over to the bar, or what passes for a bar in the camp. Some of the young adults salvaged Monty’s still, but the moonshine doesn’t taste quite the same as it did in the Dropship camp.

His sister is there, leaning against a metal pole and glaring out at the camp, a cup of her own in hand.

‘Careful, your face will freeze like that if the wind changes.’

She turns her glare to him, rolling her eyes. ‘That trick didn’t even work on me on the Ark. We never had any wind.’

‘Yeah, but I used to blow on your face,’ he replies, tugging on one of her braids, and she huffs.

‘And your breath smelled terrible then, too.’

He takes position next to her, not really eager to go back to Clarke. He can still see her from over here, sitting stiff across from Finn. Bellamy watches as Murphy joins them, and sighs. ‘That’s never gonna end well.’

‘What?’ Octavia follows his gaze and scowls. ‘Fucking murderers.’

‘To be fair, Murphy never shot anyone.’ She gives him a look and he sighs. ‘Well, not then, anyway.’

‘He could have stopped Finn.’

‘Sometimes it’s impossible to stop someone doing awful things, not when they’re so focused on trying to protect someone they love.’ He glances at her. ‘No matter how misguided they are.’

She pats him on the arm. _You came around, big brother._

‘I really am sorry he’s gone, O.’

She doesn’t answer, but there’s a wordless appreciation sent his way regardless.

As they watch, Raven emerges from her tent and makes a beeline towards Clarke, shooing Murphy away and causing Clarke to jump up. He frowns, but Clarke turns towards the bar for a second, not seeing him. But she knows he's in range to hear her thoughts.

_Bellamy? Raven’s found something. Not sure where you are but meet me at the radio tent when you can._

Octavia’s looking at him with something like amusement. ‘Duty calls?’

‘Shut up, it's called being efficient.' His sister's eye is still glinting, so he just sighs. 'Raven found something, apparently. I’ll let you know after.’

She just shakes her head. ‘Whatever.’ Bellamy smiles as he walks away. Sometimes he forgets his sister is still a teenager.

By the time he gets there, Clarke’s emerging from the tent behind her mother, who gives a brisk nod at him and leaves. He catches Clarke’s eye. ‘What did you find?’

‘Mount Weather’s jamming our radio frequencies. It’s why our radios haven’t worked long range. We’re going on a mission tomorrow to see if we can take their transmitter down and contact other Ark stations.’

Bellamy frowns. ‘So why’d you call me?’

Clarke rolls her eyes, walking back towards the inside quarters, and he falls into step with her. ‘I thought you’d want to know?'

He studies her. ‘And?’

‘Can’t get anything by you, can I?’

‘Nope,’ he says, unrepentant. ‘You’re thinking of something else.’

‘My mom just sanctioned a mission heading into the lands surrounding the mountain. If I convince her that you and Octavia would be good assets to the trip…’

‘We can figure out if there’s an entrance to the tunnels.’

‘It’s like you can read my mind,’ Clarke smirks, and he snorts.

‘Seems like. And yeah, I’m up for it. You sure we won’t get in trouble?’

‘When has Bellamy Blake ever worried about “getting in trouble”?’

‘Since your mom thinks I put you in danger. She is the Chancellor. And your mom. You got your scariness from somewhere, you know.’

Clarke frowns. ‘She thinks you put me in danger?’

Bellamy glances at her. ‘I did drag you out on an unsanctioned mission to rescue Finn.’

‘You didn’t drag me out,’ Clarke says crossly. ‘I dragged myself. You just know I can handle myself.’

‘Like I said, scary,’ he says, and she scowls at him.

_I’m not scary._

He has to smile. ‘No, you’re not. You’re something else entirely.’

_What does he mean by that?_

He ignores the undirected thought in favour of stopping outside the door to her quarters. ‘Get some sleep, Princess. Convince your mom in the morning. I’ll make sure Octavia’s ready to go.’

She gives him a small smile. ‘Alright. Thanks, Bellamy. There’s no one I trust more than you two to find what we’re looking for.’ She closes the door, and he rubs the back of his neck. She’d lied, when she’d said “you two”. She meant just him.

He goes home to tell Octavia the plan, and by the time they meet everyone by the gates the following morning, Clarke’s got her mother on board with their presence. He plays the part, too, warning the other guards of the Grounder’s tree tactics, reconnecting with Scott, a guard he'd always liked when he’d trained under him as a cadet.

It’s easy enough to fall behind slowly and slip away to where Clarke had guessed there’d be ruins of buildings connected to the bunker. They don’t notice their absence at all until half an hour later, when Bellamy's gift finally pings that people are searching for them.

‘We’ve got company,’ he mutters to Octavia, turning to greet their pursuers. No doubt Abby had sent this retrieval team.

‘Hey! Blake! Get back here!’

‘Sorry, Scott. You know we’re not under your command. You’re here to reconnect to the other Ark stations. We’re here to find a way to our people.’

Scott grits his teeth. ‘Blake…’

_Bell, look down._

The cluttering, skittering noise in the background suddenly becomes louder, and Bellamy glances down, like Octavia told him, to see rats and large cockroaches running in streams over their feet.

‘What the hell…?’ Scott mutters, and Bellamy senses it just before it billows towards them -- the sickly yellow tint of the acid fog.

‘Acid fog! We need cover, quick!’

The guards scramble for their tents, but his sister is still looking at the critters. ‘O, what are you doing?!’

 _Bell, they’re disappearing under this crack. I think there’s shelter._ She glances up. _And they’re too slow with their tents. Come on!_

Bellamy shouts at the guards to follow, trusting his sister. Somehow, he and Scott manage to pry open the door and they gesture urgently to the other two.

One follows immediately. The other hesitates, and it seals his fate.

Bellamy pulls Scott back from going to retrieve him and slams the door behind them. There was no use in more than one of them dying.

The cover they’ve found is an old parking garage. Or more like a tomb, as Octavia points out. It’s dark and eerie, every noise echoing off the concrete walls. Scott passes over the handgun, and Bellamy nods his thanks. At least one person he knew from the Ark still respects him.

But splitting up turns out to be a terrible plan.

He and Octavia manage to find a door, but the screaming interrupts them. And what they find, when they crawl the several aisles back to where Scott and Ayers should have been, isn’t ideal. A sort of old wind up toy is dropped in the middle of the aisle, playing a haunting tune, voices rising up in hair-raising tension. 

Oh, and there's Reapers.

After shooting them dead, Bellamy thanks, in his head, the dead Scott for giving him the gun. He picks up the rifle from his corpse, hands the smaller pistol to Octavia.

 _I don’t know how to use this_.

‘Aim, squeeze the trigger. You’ll be fine.’

But the words are just a little too loud. There’s a growl, a terrible noise of teeth in flesh, and Bellamy swings his flashlight to find another Reaper, kneeling over the dead corpse of Ayers, eyes glinting strangely in the torchlight. He raises his gun.

_WAIT._

He glances at Octavia. Her eyes are wide, afraid.

 _It’s Lincoln_.

Now that she’s pointed it out, it’s obvious to see. The strange glint in his eyes -- it’s because they’re black and green. But the humanity of Lincoln’s eyes are gone. Whatever happened to him, it’s clear he’s now a Reaper to them.

 _Don’t shoot, please_. _Don’t kill him_.

It’s a bit late for the discussion. Lincoln leaps towards them, ravenous and feral. And Bellamy understands every thought. It’s in another language, but he’s pretty sure he knows the translation, this time. After all, he can read intentions just as easily.

_Frag em op. Frag em op. Frag em op._

They wrestle, but Bellamy’s no match for the wild aggressiveness of Reaper Lincoln. A shot rings out, and Lincoln groans, faltering for a second. Bellamy scrambles out from under him, joining his sister.

‘O…’

‘Lincoln! Please! It’s me, Octavia!’

‘O, there’s no one in there. I can hear it.’ That seems to frighten her even more. 

_He’s not silent?_

He shakes his head. ‘Come on, before he gets up.’

_We can’t leave him here._

Bellamy looks at his sister. Her eyes are desperate, pleading.

_Bell, please._

He grabs her arm, pulls her back. But not towards the entrance they’d come in. Towards another long line of cars, pulled up against a wall. 

‘Here,’ he whispers, and he manages to jimmy the door open. They collapse inside, and he feels her shaking underneath him.

‘Bell...he looked right through me. It was like he didn’t even see me.’

He swallows. ‘Clarke saw Reapers in the tunnels when she escaped the Mountain. She said the guards chasing her controlled them with some sort of sound device.’ He lets out another shuddery breath. ‘If Lincoln was taken by them, and they control them, and now he’s one...then maybe they create them, too.’

At that moment, they see, through the glass, the silhouette of the monster who used to be Lincoln, limping towards the car. He doesn’t seem to see them. Smell them, maybe. But whatever turned him into a Reaper seems to have robbed him of most intelligent function. He slaps a bloody hand on the window, unseeing, and limps away.

‘Bell, we have to get him back. Please.’

‘O…’

‘ _Please._ ’ She repeats it in his head too. ‘If they make them into Reapers, there must be a way to turn them back. I have to believe that.’

He looks down at his baby sister. Hair up in grounder style, a sword laced to her back. A child no longer. She doesn't need him to protect her anymore, but it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do anything for her. ‘Okay. Okay, we’ll do it. We’ll have to knock him out somehow.’

‘With what?’

‘I grabbed this from Scott.’ He holds up the shock baton. ‘Pretty sure I still know how to use it. Also pretty sure it’ll knock him out. We just need a distraction so I can run up behind him.’

‘I’ll do it,’ she says, determined, and he swallows down the part of him that wants to immediately say no. 

Instead, he nods. ‘Fine. Let’s wait a few more minutes, till he’s out of hearing distance. He’s still shuffling around the cars over there.’

‘You can sense him?’

‘He’s still looking for us. That includes me. But it’s vague. Not like...he doesn’t know me. Just knows he wants to kill. For food.’

‘Food…’ Octavia shudders this time. ‘I can’t believe they’re cannibals.’

‘If you lose enough of your humanity…’ Bellamy bites his lip. ‘You sure you’re up for this?’

Octavia nods. Too quickly, but it’s unwavering nonetheless. 

‘Alright. We should be good to get out of the car. You lure him over, I’ll do the rest, okay?’

‘Okay.’ There’s a pause before she gets out of the car. 

_Thanks._

Somehow, it all goes according to plan. Octavia calls Lincoln over, and he shuffles like a zombie to their trap, still aggressive, but slow because of his wounded leg. Bellamy jumps him, applies the shock baton, and Lincoln goes down.

Octavia lets out a shaky breath. ‘Now what?’

‘Now we keep him knocked out, and we take him back to the Dropship. It’s the nearest shelter we’ve got.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then I go get Clarke.’

Between them, they manage to drag the grounder out of the garage. The fog has cleared, thank god, and Octavia stays with Lincoln while he quickly fashions something to drag him with.

‘What if he does wake up?’

Bellamy sighs. ‘Then I shock him again.’

By some miracle, they make it to their old camp without that needing to happen. They haul him up the ladder, restrain him. Bellamy gives Octavia his gun.

‘If he gets free, protect yourself. And shout if you need me. If I’m in range, I can run pretty fast.’

That gets a tiny smile. ‘Sure.’ Octavia glances at the unconscious body of her...partner, he guesses. His heart breaks for her. 

‘We’ll get him back. I promise.’

‘I hope so.’

_Hurry._

He does. If anyone can save Lincoln, it’s one of the Griffins; it’s Clarke.

Bellamy has faith.

***

"beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze **long into an abyss,** the abyss gazes also into you."

— friedrich nietzsche

  
  


Watching her mother and Thelonious give their speeches reminds Clarke strangely of her and Bellamy, back before the battle at the Dropship camp. They're both attempting to sway the crowd to their side, each utterly convinced they should stay or go, respectively, in the face of an oncoming grounder attack.

“We are grounders!” Bellamy had yelled. She’d undermined him a minute later, giving the kids an easy way out that never would have worked. Right now, she knows that despite all that happened there, the ring of fire, the battle, Mount Weather...they’d made the right choice by staying.

Just like they need to stay now. They have to free the forty-seven from Mount Weather.

As the crowd disperses to at least pack in preparation, someone grabs her arm, and she almost throws it off before she recognises the warm, firm grip.

‘Where the hell have you been?

 _I was fucking worried,_ she adds, just for him.

‘It’s a long story,’ Bellamy mutters. ‘But you have to come with me now. We’ve got a situation at the Dropship. Bring your med kit and any other supplies you have on hand.’

 _I’m only agreeing because I trust you_ , she thinks to him furiously, and Finn, standing beside her the whole time, waves her off with the promise to come warn them if a decision is made.

‘A decision about what?’ Bellamy asks, when they’re on their way. He’s walking at a brisk pace, and Clarke can only imagine whatever scenario is waiting for her concerns his sister.

‘In a way,’ he says. ‘But seriously, what decision?’

‘Jaha came back,’ she says, and his eyebrows shoot up. ‘Somehow, he made it down. Got captured by the grounders. They sent him as a message. We have about a day to leave the camp or they attack.’

Bellamy swears. ‘For the massacre?’

‘I’d say that’s the main reason.’

‘We can’t abandon the camp. It’s the only place we can reasonably defend and house everyone. Where the hell do they expect us to go? How are we supposed to get our people out of Mount Weather?’

‘Exactly my concern,’ Clarke tells him, grim. ‘And I’m worried Jaha’s going to wear my mother down.’

‘That can’t happen.’

‘I’ll try my best,’ Clarke says tightly. ‘But enough about that. What’s in the Dropship, Bellamy?’

His jaw works. ‘It might be best if you see if for yourself.’

Due to their fast pace and limited conversation from then on, they get there only an hour and a bit later. There are screams. Growls. What the hell has Bellamy gotten himself into?

‘Come on.’

She follows him up the ladder. And what awaits her gives her another sense of hideous deja vu. 

Lincoln, strapped up. Arms pulled taut and wrapped in chains. Only this time, he isn’t the silent, strong martyr, determined to not unleash a sound. No, this Lincoln is feral, pulling at his chains with ferocious strength, baring his teeth and screaming. Clarke lets out a shaky, tense breath. ‘How the hell are we back here again?’

Next to him, sitting on the floor and looking the most tired and defeated Clarke has ever truly seen her, is Octavia. ‘Can you fix him, Clarke?’ she asks hoarsely.

It’s honestly still sinking in for her, but it’s clear enough what’s happened. He’s a Reaper.

‘I knew the Mountain Men could control them,’ Clarke says. ‘I didn’t realise they created them.’

‘That’s what I thought, too,’ Bellamy says. ‘Whatever it is, it cancels out his Grace, too. No silence. I can sense everything from him. Although that everything is mostly just the one thing.’

_And that is?_

‘Kill us,’ he says, short. Clarke shudders, and when she stares at Lincoln again, it’s clear his black and green eyes are full of... it's not hatred. Hunger. She remembers the moment back in the tunnels, when the Reapers surrounded her.

‘Gracelings,’ she says. ‘All the Reapers are Gracelings. There must be something about us that they can change.’

‘Let’s hope they don’t get their hands on us, then,’ Bellamy says. He swears. ‘No wonder Gracelings are outcasted, not trusted. Why let yourself get attached to someone if they just turn into a monster later on?’

Clarke lets herself examine Lincoln’s body again. There had to be evidence of the procedure he went through. There’s a wound on his leg, red and bleeding. When she asks, it’s Octavia who answers, voice low.

‘I shot him.’

‘He’s losing a lot of blood, Clarke,’ Bellamy adds. ‘But we can’t patch him up if he’s thrashing about. And I assume knocking him out isn’t ideal.’

‘No, you’re right.’ Clarke grimaces. ‘Can you shine the light on his neck?’

It’s what she thought. ‘Needlemarks.’

‘Drugs?’ Bellamy asks, and Clarke nods.

‘Maybe. We can’t know for sure.’

‘So if we wait long enough, it’ll filter out of his system?’ Octavia asks hopefully.

‘That might work it, it might not.’ She steps closer, wanting a closer look at the injection site, but at the last second, a hand yanks her back.

‘Look out!’

One of Lincoln’s chains breaks from the wall, and he swings towards her. Bellamy pulls her further back just in time, but in the next few moments, the other restraints come free, and all the might of a Reaper is unleashed in the tiny space.

Lincoln pulls Clarke into a headlock, headbutts Bellamy to the floor, kicks Octavia in the stomach. It’s a mess of punches and yelling and feral screams, until finally, someone grabs a pipe and knocks it hard into Lincoln’s head. He goes down.

It’s Octavia, standing behind the fallen form of her boyfriend, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Quick,’ she says, voice steady even as her face is a mess. ‘Tie him up.’

Clarke and Bellamy crawl to obey, this time hauling chains over Lincoln’s chest, locking them more securely to the floor. She looks down at Lincoln’s form, steady breath easing in and out, at last a peaceful picture.

But knocking him out forever wasn’t a solution. The head trauma alone, especially in the state he was in...Clarke doesn’t like to think about it.

This was going to be a challenge.

*****

Bellamy watches as Clarke dresses Lincoln’s gunshot wound, hands steady and quiet. After, she goes through her medkit supplies, taking out tubes and frowning at each one. All her focus is on her task, nothing about him to mine.

‘Thoughts?’

‘I think Octavia might be right. If we can wait until the drug is out of his system, it might just work. I’m just trying to find one that I remember speeds up the process. I saw mom using it once or twice on the Ark.’

She evidently does, judging by the triumphant flash across her face. But as she goes to inject Lincoln, he wakes again. Just their luck.

Somehow, they manage to hold him down for the injection. He watches as Clarke chews her lip, clearly anxious. Lincoln’s still awake, still pulling at his chains, still foaming at the mouth. His sister tries to administer water, but Lincoln bites her hand, and Octavia yelps and jumps back, spilling it. For a flash, she's that small kid again, afraid of small spaces on the Ark, looking to Bellamy for help.

But then she wipes a hand across her face and stands, avoiding looking at the writhing figure on the floor.

‘I’ll get some more.’

He stands with her, catches her as she turns. ‘Hey,' he tries. 'We’ll work this out. Once the drug is out of his system, he’ll be okay.’

But she just looks at him sadly.

_You can’t protect me from this one, big brother._

She disappears down the ladder, and Bellamy sighs, crouching next to Clarke. She’s taping over his gunshot wound, the bandage already slipping off from Lincoln’s constant movement. She glances up at him.

 _You’re a good brother_.

‘And you’re a good doctor. Your mom would be proud.’

‘My mom would know how to save him,’ Clarke sighs. ‘There’s only so much I can do alone. I’m not even fully trained.’

‘You’ve got us this far,’ Bellamy points out. ‘I’m pretty sure the shit we’ve faced on the ground counts for a lot of experience.’

‘Yeah,’ she chews her lip. ‘Maybe.’

They sit in silence for a moment, and Bellamy’s about to ask what their next move is when he senses Octavia coming back. But she’s not alone.

He grabs his gun, and trains it on the grounder that emerges with Octavia.

‘Bell! Don’t shoot. He’s fine. He’s Lincoln’s friend, and a healer.’

 _He won’t hurt any of us_.

Bellamy reluctantly motions him forward, after a second.

_That Skayon better not use that thing after his friend used it to kill my people._

He recognises the guy now. He’d been at the village. The one who’d talked to Octavia after the massacre. But apparently there's no time allowed for him to dwell on that. Behind him, the growling stops, and a rhythmic shaking of Lincoln's entire body follows.

‘What’s happening?’

‘He’s seizing,’ Clarke says, panicked. ‘Probably a side effect of withdrawal.’

The grounder healer pushes past all of them, bending down over Lincoln, eyes closed in some kind of prayer. He grabs a bottle from his kit, and holds it, slightly slanted over Lincoln’s mouth. 

_‘Yu gonplei ste odon_ ,’ he mutters, and Bellamy watches Clarke’s expression freeze.

‘Wait!’ Her hand reaches out to catch the drop that falls. The grounder reacts aggressively, reaching for a dagger, and Bellamy has his gun aimed immediately.

‘Back off, right now.’

Octavia is staring at Clarke. ‘Why’d you stop him?’

She repeats the words the grounder had said, slowly. ‘I’ve heard it before. They say it before death.' Her eyes alight on the grounder. 'He’s not trying to heal Lincoln. He’s trying to kill him.'

‘Tell us,’ Octavia says shakily, throwing a meaningful glance his way. ‘Is that true, Nyko?’

Nyko pauses, but nods gravely. ‘Death is the only way.’

‘There could be a way to bring him back,’ Clarke argues. Nyko shakes his head.

‘None that I’ve seen.’

Bellamy senses a presence then, below, climbing up the ladder. But just as he realises who it is, it’s too late to stop Finn popping his head over the hatch, climbing up to join them.

 _‘You!’_ Nyko explodes, and positively leaps at Finn, choking him up against the wall. ‘You killed eighteen of my people!’

Bellamy tries to haul him off, but Nyko’s bigger than him, and it’s utter chaos yet again as Bellamy tries to shoot but Octavia stands in the way, Nyko all the while screaming for revenge.

Clarke's the one who ends it, picking up the abandoned shock baton and incapacitating Nyko, letting Finn slip away.

But something else has ended in the interim, Bellamy yelling out as soon as his gift registers it.

‘There’s no heartbeat!’

Octavia gasps, knees landing heavy at Lincoln's side. ‘He’s not breathing. Clarke!’

‘Move!’ Clarke commands, and she starts the compressions, her face stony and determined as she pumps Lincoln’s chest in stoic, rhythmic beat. Bellamy learned CPR as a cadet in the guard, but he’s sure his attempt would be woeful compared to hers.

He watches as Clarke brings a dead man back to life.

When Lincoln breathes, his sister breathes with him, whispering thank you over and over to Clarke, who sits up and closes her eyes. And that’s when Nyko speaks, frozen, half lying down against the side of the ship, eyes wide.

‘ _Ha yu don dula daun?_ ’ He shakes his head. ‘How did you do that?’

Clarke stares. ‘You’ve tried bringing Reapers back before? And they died like this?’

Nyko nods silently, as if dumbfounded. Bellamy can see the gears turning in Clarke's head already, even before she makes eye contact with him.

_Bellamy, can you stay here with everyone? Keep them safe while I go? Keep Lincoln alive?_

‘What is it?’ He chooses to answer her out loud, worried.

She stands. ‘I know how to stop the attack.’

‘How?’

‘We didn’t have anything to offer them. Now we do. We can bring back their people and eliminate a threat, all at once.’

‘The Reapers,’ Bellamy realises, meeting her eye. She nods, just once.

Octavia glances up from where she’s tending to Lincoln, who’s still not conscious, but breathing steadily. ‘Nyko, could that work? If we can bring your people back from being Reapers, would the Commander consider a truce?’

Nyko blinks. ‘Our people want revenge. I want revenge. But if Lincoln recovers from this...' he bows his head. 'Much of the reason Gracelings are outcasts is because of what might become of them: our enemy. You show her a way to recover our people, _heda_ will consider it.’

‘Then I have to do it,’ Clarke declares, and Bellamy catches her shoulder as she tries to exit.

‘We don’t even know if the drug is out of his system yet,’ he says, low enough for Nyko not to hear.

_If I send my mother here, she can heal him. I know it._

‘It’s a gamble, Princess.’

_But one I have to take. I’ll go, take Finn back with me. You hold down the fort here. Lincoln’s stable for now, and I’ll send my mother as soon as I can._

He looks over her, anxious. ‘Be careful. No unnecessary risks, okay?’

She flashes him a quick, understanding smile. 

_Same to you_.

And then Clarke Griffin’s gone, and it all depends on her.

*

There’s resistance at first, to her proposal. Of course there is. The most vehement is from Jaha, who dismisses it out of hand as too much of a long shot. They have to go now, he says. Before it’s too late.

But leaving would expose them all, and let her friends die in Mount Weather. If there’s a way for her to get peace without giving up, she’s going to take it.

Somehow, her mother has faith in her too.

She knows how much she’s risking here. Without knowing whether her mother will succeed, her talk with the grounder Commander will be a bluff, dependent entirely on her deception. If Bellamy was the grounder leader, it would be over quick-flash, as soon as he knew she was lying.

But the Commander isn’t a Graceling, and it's doubtful any of her advisors will be either, considering their practice of keeping them at arm's length. Besides, it’s not Clarke’s fault there’s a time limit on proving themselves. Leave or die. It isn’t much of a choice. 

So Clarke’s not choosing either.

The grounders agree to let her see the Commander, so that’s step one. They’d arrived the night before, torches glimmering like stars in the darkness, hundreds of them. Now, it’s daylight, and a man is standing in her way, nearly a foot taller than her, staring her down.

‘If you so much as look at her the wrong way, I will slit your throat, Graceling.’ She doesn’t let her fear show. These people, she knows, don’t revere it.

So Clarke heads inside the tent without letting herself waver. It’s an impressive structure, for how temporary it’s supposed to be. And the one she assumes is the Commander, judging by the unusual red sash and darker warrior paint, is sitting on a goddamn _throne_ , made from what appears to be warped tree branches.

Did they lug that around behind her everywhere?

She blinks to clear her head. There’s a guard to the left of the Commander that fits the description Octavia had given her of Indra. She stares hard at Clarke, disgust obvious.

But it’s the Commander who speaks first, not making eye contact, just spinning a knife between her hands. ‘You’re the Graceling who burnt three hundred of my warriors alive.’

Clarke lifts her jaw before she replies. ‘You’re the one who sent them there to kill us.’

The Commander’s face turns to stone, and there's an uncomfortable silence. ‘And what’s your Grace, then?’

‘I don’t know, truthfully,’ Clarke hesitates. ‘It’s only beginning to show itself now.’

There’s a flash behind the Commander’s eyes, but she doesn’t move, just digs the knife into the arm of the throne, looking all the while like she’s just bored.

‘Do you have an answer for me, Clarke of the Sky People?’

‘I’m not here to talk about that. I'm here to make an offer.’

‘This is not a negotiation.’

‘ _Teik ai frag greisling op en dison laik odon,_ ’ spits Indra, but the Commander holds up a hand, silencing her.

Clarke takes the opportunity to make the offer. She can help them beat the Mountain Men. She can free the hundreds of people stuck in there, being drained for their blood, for medicine.

‘How do you know this is what happens?’

‘Because I was trapped in there too.’

‘Lies,’ Indra spits. ‘You’re a Graceling. You’d be a Reaper.’

‘We were kidnapped under the pretense of us being guests,’ Clarke explains, as patiently as she can. ‘But they found out our blood was better medicine. I was more valuable to them as a blood bag, just like your people. I want to rescue my people as badly as you do.’

‘No one escapes the Mountain.’

‘I did. With Anya.’ She makes sure to look at the Commander. ‘We fought our way out together.’

‘Anya died in the fire,’ Indra snaps, and Clarke shakes her head, reaching into her pocket for what she hopes is the trump card.

‘She told me you were her second,’ she says carefully, drawing out the plait she’d cut from Anya’s body, before she’d buried it. ‘I’m sure she’d want you to have this.’ She remembers, even now, the gentle way Anya had cut a piece of hair from Tris’s head, after the girl had died.

Clarke only hopes the tradition goes the other way.

‘We fought, physically, and I won. She said you might respect that about me.’

‘We don’t know it’s hers,’ Indra says, but the Commander is looking down at the plait with a contemplative face.

‘ _Shof op,_ Indra.’

The gesture seems to work, at least a little. The Commander asks if Anya died well. 'Trying to get a message to you,' Clarke says, making it seem more honourable than it truly was. Anya shouldn’t have died by sniper. But there’s no changing that now.

‘I’m still waiting for an offer, Graceling,’ the Commander finally says, and Clarke doesn’t let her face stutter.

‘I think you know the Mountain Men are turning your people into Reapers. I can turn them back.’

‘Impossible,’ Indra snarls immediately, and despite the warrior’s fearsome, stoic demeanour, Clarke gets the impression straight away that the issue is personal to her. _‘Heda, ai ste beja yu daun teik ai frag em op._ '

‘I’ve done it with Lincoln,’ Clarke pushes, and Indra starts forward, staring her in the eye.

‘That _natrona_ is the reason--’

‘Indra! Em pleni!’ The warrior moves away, after a pause, obviously seething. But the Commander rises and takes her place.

‘You say you can turn Reapers back into men? Then prove it. Show me Lincoln.’

Clarke swallows. Now it was time for a moment of truth.

She leads them to the Dropship, hoping, praying, that her mother has come through. That they won’t all die today. As they approach the perimeter, Clarke starts thinking a message to Bellamy. They’re coming. Be prepared. It’s a warning that’s probably fruitless, if they’ve failed, but it’s a warning nonetheless.

As it is, she emerges through the hatch, and Bellamy’s already staring at her with wide eyes.

Lincoln’s unmoving on the floor. Octavia is weeping over him, arms still in a compression position. Clarke looks at her mother, and receives, for the first time ever, a hopeless look from her in return. The Commander and the rest appear behind her, and for a second, everything is deadly silent, with the exception of Octavia’s sobs.

 _The gun next to you_ , Clarke thinks desperately to Bellamy. 

But he’s looking at something else, just out of her sight. 

_''_ You _lied,_ ’ The Commander says, furious. ‘ _Frag emo op!'_

Clarke turns and follows Bellamy’s eyes. And with a gasp of her own, she realises what he's staring at. 

‘Mom, the baton! Defib!’

Abby gasps and ducks, missing a swing from Indra. She picks up the baton. And then she plunges it down like a sword, shocking Lincoln’s chest.

The chaos in the room pauses. 

‘Again!’ Clarke screams.

She obliges, and this time, it works.

Lincoln breathes. 

Octavia leans over him, stuttering his name, and his odd, bleary eyes rest on hers. ‘Octavia?’ There's a clarity to them that wasn't there before. Gone is the rage and hunger marking him as a Reaper. It’s clear that the grounders are taken aback. Clarke meets the Commander’s eye and nods, shaky. And the grounder leader folds the sword she had drawn back in her sheath, nodding in return.

Clarke turns to catch Bellamy’s eye, letting out a breath.

 _You just saved us all_. 

He ducks his head.

The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur. They put together a stretcher to take Lincoln back to Camp Jaha, and Clarke’s about to go with them when the Commander stops her. ‘Clarke, you're with us. We have negotiations to discuss.’

She glances Bellamy. He’s already looking at her, jaw clenched, looking worried.

 _I’ll be fine. Wait for me at the gate_.

He doesn’t look happy about it, but he nods, jerky.

She goes with the Commander.

Once back in the light-filled tent, the Commander sends everyone out, even her guards. She looks at Clarke, contemplative. ‘I don’t think I formally introduced myself. I’m Lexa. My people call me _heda,_ which means Commander. But you are not my people; you are the leader of yours. We address each other as equals.’

Clarke nods. ‘Sure, okay.’

Lexa looks down at the battle map they’re standing around. It’s an oddly more sophisticated and more simple version of Bellamy’s version, back in the Dropship. The mix of more experience but less technology. ‘Lincoln’s recovery is impressive. I’ve never seen it done before.’

‘I know we can do it for others,’ Clarke presses. ‘We capture them, keep them alive, and the drugs can - will - leave their system.’

Lexa nods, pauses, lifts her eyes to Clarke's. ‘Then you may have your truce.’

A relief opens up in Clarke’s chest. Finally. They can move past this, save their people in Mount Weather, move on with their--

‘I just need one thing in return.’

‘Tell me.’

Lexa’s face turns serious. ‘Deliver me the one you call Finn. Our truce starts with his death.’

And with that, all the tension melts back in.

Oh, fuck.

*******

He stands vigil at the gate. The grounder camp is just close enough to him that he knows she’s still there, and that’s a comfort, at least.

And even more so when she starts heading towards him, flanked by some other men on horses.

‘It’s Clarke, open the gate,’ Bellamy calls to the guards, before he should, really. There’s no possible way he could see her through the thick mist. But they obey, and a minute later, Clarke appears through the dank fog, silver eye and blonde hair reflecting the little light they have. It's a relief to see her safe and sound, even knowing ostensibly she was there for peace negotiations.

But then he clocks her expression. He moves forward so she knows he’s there, and immediately, he senses her dread.

_They want Finn._

His jaw clenches. Of course. He should have known. He doesn’t give his opinion quite yet, though. Instead, he falls in step with her, willing himself to be the steady presence she needs by her side. And she’s grateful for it, which is nice.

Bellamy stands at her back while she relays the news to the anxious group waiting. Abby, Jaha, Raven, Finn himself. But really, she should have said it inside, because the crowd around overhears, and they get antsy. He really wishes she remembered the lesson from Murphy's hanging.

Raven punches one when he becomes too loud, but Bellamy and Jaha manage to calm everyone else down while Clarke and Abby bustle Finn away. It still takes time, though, and he only manages to get away to follow half an hour later. He finds Clarke pacing one of the corridors, frenetic energy consuming her.

He lays a hand on her shoulder, stilling her. ‘Hey, come on. You’re gonna whirl yourself up into a panic.’

Clarke clenches her jaw, and Bellamy knows she’s biting back on snapping at him. But she does look at him. ‘What the hell are we supposed to do, Bellamy? Finn...Finn did a terrible thing. I know that. But he’s one of us. He’s...he’s not himself. And he did it because of…’

He interrupts before she can say that last word. ‘You’ve gotta stop torturing yourself over that, Clarke. If you claim fault, I do too. I let him go without proper supervision.’

‘He would have done it anyway,’ Clarke mutters. ‘Not even you could have stopped that.’

‘I could have knocked him out,’ Bellamy points out, and she gives him a look.

_Seriously?_

‘Look, I’m not saying it’s my fault. I’m saying it’s neither of ours. It’s on him. It's on Finn.’

She doesn’t believe him, not entirely. He knows it means she still blames herself. But those thoughts are swept aside quickly, and another frustration rises up to become her words. ‘And that means we can just hand him over to be tortured? Because that’s what’s going to happen. You’ve seen them, Bellamy. They won’t just kill him and be done with it. You can’t seriously think--’

‘You can’t seriously think I’d ever hand anyone over to the grounders,’ he interrupts her again, hotly, and she blinks.

_But you don’t like Finn. You don’t agree with his actions._

‘Pretty sure I hate grounders more,’ he nudges her, ‘with only one exception. And I certainly don’t agree with their idea of justice.’

Clarke, all tensed up with the idea of fighting him on this, physically deflates. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I know you better than that.’

‘Damn straight.’ He sighs. ‘I’m not saying this is gonna be easy. But I have your back. And Finn’s. He’s one of the hundred. Just like me, right?’

She gives him a small smile. ‘Right. Just like you.' She looks as if she's about to say something else, but instead she just sighs. 'Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, Princess. Now let’s go figure this out.’

The following day is messy and long and hard. They stick together, though. Bellamy makes sure of that. He’s there when Abby tells the riders to leave and there when Kane comes stumbling through the grass, telling them that he's bargained for more time.

When he gets through the gate, his eye appraises Bellamy and Clarke, standing shoulder to shoulder, and for the first time, Kane’s thoughts towards him aren’t negative. 

_They’re a younger version of Abby and me._

Bellamy’s unsure whether it’s a compliment, but given that Kane and Abby do stand shoulder to shoulder for the rest of the day as well, it’s an interesting comparison to have floating through his head.

The only proper time he and Clarke split up is when they all agree to the Dropship plan. He covers Raven instead, who, despite her insistence, isn’t exactly up for a thirteen mile solo trek through woods crawling with Grounders. Not with her leg how it is.

Still, they get to the Dropship first, and Raven’s palpably anxious, enough that he tries to calm her.

‘Raven, they’ll get here soon.’

But the next figure through the tarp isn’t Finn or Clarke. It’s fucking Murphy.

‘What are you doing here?’

_He doesn’t know?_

Raven clears her throat. ‘I invited him. Figured we could use an extra gun, right?’

Immediately, he knows it’s not the whole truth. With the way Raven avoids his eyes, he barely needs his Grace to sense the lie. Murphy was invited for another reason entirely, and he’s not sure he likes what it might be.

But he’s distracted from that when Finn appears through the tarp.

‘Help!’

Clarke’s in his arms, unconscious, or nearly so, and Bellamy’s heart stops. ‘What happened? Quick, lay her down here.’ He hauls off his own jacket without even thinking about it, cradling it under her head. ‘I need a rag or something, quick.' Her head is bleeding profusely, but he does manage to remember something about that happening with head wounds even when they’re not life-threatening. ‘Clarke, can you hear me?’

There’s nothing for a second, but Clarke does eventually groan, down in her throat.

_Bellamy?_

The relief is palpable. He holds the rag to her wound and nods up at a frantic looking Finn and a wide-eyed Raven and concerned Murphy. He’s not sure what they think is happening, but Raven and Murphy seem to take his assurance that everything’s okay as a given.

‘Hey,’ he whispers down to Clarke. ‘You’re gonna be fine. You just need to rest.’

_Head...sore. What happened? Bellamy?_

‘Just rest,’ he says, not able to say anything else with the others present, and to his relief, there’s agreement from her, and a gentle slip into unconsciousness that’s not violent.

Finn still looks sick, however, and storms out soon after. For the first time ever, Bellamy knows how he feels. The image of Clarke limp and bleeding had scared him. Scared him _badly._ It’s only now his pulse is returning to its proper rate.

Deep down, Bellamy can’t help but think that if he’s this afraid for her now, for a minor head wound...how is he going to react if Clarke is in much more intense danger?

He doesn’t want to end up like Finn.

But he can’t ignore his feelings any longer. At some point in the last month, since their subtle Unity Day flirting, his liking for Clarke has gotten just that little bit more serious. 

Okay, a lot more serious.

But it’s fine. He’s gonna deal with it. Now that he (consciously) knows, he can acknowledge it, work around it, put it aside to deal with the bigger issues at hand, like making sure she’s looked after now. So that when Clarke’s eyes open and he can see that comforting and alluring silver and blue again, he can stop freaking the fuck out.

He never thought he’d crave the sight of her odd eyes so much.

*****

Clarke’s on edge all day, and it’s only the steady presence of Bellamy by her side that keeps her from exploding. Exploding on the grounders, for making her deal with such a terrible ultimatum. Exploding on her mother, for wasting time with politics. Exploding on Murphy, for not stopping Finn at the village. Exploding on Finn, for getting them and himself into this mess.

Exploding on herself, because it’s her fault, in a twisted way, as much as Bellamy tries to tell her differently.

She does let her anger out on Lincoln, just a little, and of course it’s at a time when Bellamy’s off on Finn duty. The grounder they’d brought back to humanity is sitting in medical, insisting he still needs his restraints, Octavia hovering at his side. And he's unrepentant in believing that handing over Finn is the only option.

‘Finn was your friend, the first person who came to you for peace,’ she bites at him, but his expression doesn’t change. 

‘That was my village that he slaughtered,’ he reminds everyone in the room. ‘I might have lived separately from them, but it’s where I grew up. My friends, my elders, children I saw come into this world. They died at his hand.’

Clarke’s throat closes up. ‘You know that’s not who he really is,’ she says softly, and his odd eyes shutter.

‘We’ve all got a monster inside of us, Clarke. And we’re all responsible for what it does when we let it out.’

Despite her disagreement with him, despite her belief that they can’t give Finn up to the Commander no matter how ‘merciful’ Lexa is supposedly being, the words stick in her head all day. They're still there even as Bellamy appears to tell them they have to leave, that the Arkers are turning on Finn, that if they don’t leave, it’s clear he’ll be handed over without them being able to stop it.

It seems like there are monsters inside of her own people, too. Clarke knows it’s the survival instinct, but the utter selfishness of it burns her heart, selfishness that she knows she has too, in wanting to save Finn in the first place. It’s not love. She left her romantic feelings for Finn behind a while ago. It might have been after the Raven revelation, but it was still long before the Ring of Fire and the Mountain. But as much as she can’t feel that for him anymore, she feels, most keenly, the nostalgia of the boy he used to be. The adventurer, the peacemaker, the idealist. That Finn’s still there. She can see it. It’s just lost, behind his trauma and desperation and fury at the unfairness of the world.

Clarke sees it when she wakes up from being knocked out, and Finn's there instead of Bellamy. She buries the feeling that she would have preferred the latter. It’s not fair to compare them. The Finn in front of her is a reminder of that bright human he used to be. A flawed one that she got frustrated with, that did shitty things, that put ideals before practicality. But a bright one nonetheless.

‘I thought you were dead,’ Finn says to her, ‘when the grounder knocked you out. I thought…’

‘I’m right here,’ Clarke says. ‘I’m fine.’

But the spark is lost when the others come back in, and Finn’s back to being a shadow of his former self.

Bellamy’s true to his word. He backs her up, backs Finn up, even when all hope seems lost, when they’re surrounded with nowhere to go. He even backs Murphy up, when Raven loses her head, tries to exchange her family for the boy who shot her.

Even as Clarke tells her she doesn’t mean it, she understands Raven’s attempt. She’s trying so desperately to hold on to the last piece of a boy she loved, even when he’s ruined himself.

And that’s why it still hurts, when Finn blindsides all of them. Giving himself up, letting himself be taken by the grounders. Even Bellamy’s in shock, and she turns to him, accusing.

_Why didn’t you know he was going to do that?_

He just shakes his head, numb. ‘Because it had nothing to do with me,’ he answers, and he glances at her, and over her shoulder at Raven being held back by Murphy from chasing after the grounders. ‘I’m betting it had everything to do with you and her.’

It doesn’t make her feel better.

The trek back to Camp Jaha is morose and silent. Raven’s fuming at all of them for preventing her from running after Finn. She doesn’t seem to care that she can’t run, or that the Grounders would have slain her where she stood. It puts Clarke’s care for Finn in an entirely small and insignificant light.

‘We’ll figure something out,’ Bellamy murmurs, but he’s said it so many times by now, it no longer has any meaning. Clarke’s pretty sure it’s false hope at this point. But she still appreciates that he tries.

When they get back to Camp Jaha, Abby hugs her, tight and angry, and Raven, too. But Clarke knows the look in her mother’s eyes. There’s nothing the Arkers can do to help, now. It’s already dark, and the torches from the grounder camp are blazing. Their little group pushes to the front of the crowd, and they watch as the grounders erect the stake.

‘What’s that?’ Raven asks, hoarse, and Clarke swallows, remembering Lincoln’s words. It starts with fire, he’d said, for the innocent. Then the hands. Then the many cuts, from the villagers. Then the Commander’s sword, in the unlikely event it was needed.

‘It’s for Finn,’ she manages, and doesn’t tell her the details.

‘We can stop this,’ Bellamy is saying. ‘Get in close, hit ‘em hard.’ 

It confuses Clarke, for a second, why Bellamy’s so hellbent on this not happening. Despite all his assurances today about backing Finn up, he's still a practical guy, still never liked Finn in the way he cared about dozens of the others.

But then the number of a hundred comes to her, and all the tally marks that had whittled that round digit down. He’s still trying to save and protect his people, the ones he made his own at some nebulous point in between his mission to prioritise his sister and himself and risking everything to look after a bunch of delinquent kids. Finn, despite everything, was part of that number from the start.

‘No,’ Kane says gently. ‘We can’t.’

‘Abby. Abby, please,’ Raven begs her mother. But as Clarke knew she would, her mother says no.

Clarke gnaws on her lip, looking out at the torches. In the middle is the Commander’s tent, where for a brief moment Clarke had thought everything would be fine again. Or maybe fine for the first time. It's hard to remember a time she last thought things were peaceful. She wonders how the sunlight-dappled tent looks in the darkness, whether the Commander was waiting in there, waiting to unleash the sentence upon Finn.

And she realises that she has to try, one more time, to reason with Lexa. She’s shown herself to be flexible. Clarke can ask her to show mercy, to show the Arkers she’s powerful enough to stop this. And if that doesn’t work, well, maybe Clarke can give herself over instead. It’s not like she’s not an experienced killer. Sometimes, it feels like she deserves to be condemned more than Finn.

She glances along the line of her people.

_Bellamy, I need to go talk to them._

He glances back at her with alarm, the start of a head shake starting, and she grits her teeth.

_Yes. I have to at least try._

He closes his eyes, but tilts his head back, pointing her to behind her mother and Kane, and she feels grateful for him, all over again. If this ends how she thinks it could, thinks it _might -_ Clarke’s going to need him more than ever.

*

Clarke’s scaring him.

She communicates wordlessly with him that she needs to go, and that’s the first sign that something’s wrong. She could have said it aloud, but she wants it to be quiet.

‘What the hell are you thinking?' he hisses, knowing that she's hiding whatever her plan is from him for a reason.

She avoids his eyes and closes off even more when Raven appears, having followed them. ‘You’re going?’

Clarke nods, stiff, and Raven nods back, once. She slides a knife out from under her jacket. She makes Clarke hold out her arm, sliding the knife into her sleeve. ‘If the Commander doesn’t let him go, kill her. Chaos will erupt, we’ll come in and grab you and Finn and run.’

‘Raven,’ he tries to placate. It’s an insane plan. He might have talked about it just before, but he doesn’t truly believe there’s anything the Arkers can do at this point. If Clarke kills the Commander, she’ll be shot immediately, long before any of them can hop a fence and intervene.

But Raven ignores him, staring at Clarke. ‘Please,’ her voice wavers. ‘I owe him my life.’

Clarke doesn’t agree to the scheme, he notices sharply, but accepts the knife anyway. She starts towards the gate.

_Can you get them to open it for me?_

‘Clarke, listen to me. It’s too dangerous.’

 _Now,_ she thinks to him, sharper than usual. _You have to let me do this._

He relents, and she only looks back at him once before she disappears into the darkness. Bellamy tracks her ascent up the grassy rise with mounting fear. He catalogues each of her actions with growing terror. She passes the grounders. Faces off with a man. Pushes herself onto Indra’s spear.

With that action, he regrets letting her out there. He wants to tell her to stop, wants her to fucking communicate what’s going on. _Tell me what’s happening_ , _Clarke,_ he begs her silently, knowing the thoughts aren’t caught by anyone but himself.

Finn is brought out, prompting shouts and jeers from the Grounders. He’s tied to the post. Clarke and the Commander have a conversation. Raven’s muttering a mantra beside him. ‘Come on, Clarke. Do it. Come on.’

But Clarke doesn’t. She turns away from the figure of the Commander, and starts towards Finn. The grounders let her.

‘What is she doing?’ Raven hisses, and then Bellamy receives the only silent words from Clarke, thus far. They’re simple.

_Hold her, please. Don’t let her see this._

And it dawns on him, with crystal sharp reality, what Clarke’s about to do.

He watches her kiss him, and hug him, all of it hiding something else. But he knows. And he knows she’s strong enough to do it, where most people couldn’t bear to. He’s seen her mercy kill before.

Bellamy holds Raven around the shoulders before Clarke even steps back, and Raven’s confusion only lasts a few seconds. Clarke retreats. There’s an uproar from the grounders, silenced by a shout from the Commander. Raven screams, collapsing in his arms, and Bellamy holds her, half an unsigned promise fulfilled. Because Raven sees, like him, like all of them, the slumped form of Finn, the dark red stain spreading on his chest.

Finn Collins is dead.

And Bellamy watches Clarke. She stands a few feet away from her kill, hands bloody with the red of mercy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! please comment/kudos if you liked it, and don't forget to support BLM causes if you're in a position to do so, and stay safe/healthy.  
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